Battle of Jājau, June 10, 1707.
—Shah Alam advanced from Lahore, and Azam, with his son Bedar Bakht, from the Deccan; and both armies met on the plains of Jajau, near Dholpur. A more desperate conflict was never recorded in the many bloody pages of the history of India. Had it been a common contest for supremacy, to be decided by the Muslim supporters of the rivals, it would have ended like similar ones,—a furious onset, terminated by a treacherous desertion. But here were assembled the brave bands of Rajputana, house opposed to house, and clan against clan. The princes of Datia and Kotah, who had long served with Prince Azam, and were attached to him by favours, forgot the injunctions of Aurangzeb, and supported that prince’s pretensions against the lawful heir. A powerful friendship united the chiefs of Bundi and Datia, whose lives exhibited one scene of glorious triumph in all the wars of the Deccan. In opposing the cause of Shah Alam, Ram Singh of Kotah was actuated by his ambition to become the head of the Haras, and in anticipation of success had actually been invested with the honours of Bundi. With such stimulants on each side did the rival Haras meet face to face on the plains of Jajau, to decide at the same time the pretensions to empire, and what affected them more, those of their respective heads to superiority. Previous to the battle, Ram Singh sent a perfidious message to Rao Budh, inviting him to desert the cause he espoused, and come over to Azam; to which he indignantly replied: “That the field which his ancestor had illustrated by his death, was not that whereon he would disgrace his memory by the desertion of his prince.”Budh Singh was assigned a distinguished post, and by his conduct and courage [484] mainly contributed to the victory which placed Bahadur Shah without a rival on the throne. The Rajputs on either side sustained the chief shock of the battle, and the Hara prince of Kotah, and the noble Bundela, Dalpat of Datia, were both killed by cannon-shot, sacrificed to the cause they espoused; while the pretensions of Azam and his son Bedar Bakht were extinguished with their lives.
For the signal services rendered on this important day, Budh Singh was honoured with the title of Rao Raja, and was admitted to the intimate friendship of the emperor, which he continued to enjoy until his death, when fresh contentions arose, in which the grandsons of Aurangzeb all perished. Farrukhsiyar succeeded to the empire, under whom the Sayyids of Barha held supreme power, and ruined the empire by their exactions and tyranny. When they determined to depose the king, the Hara prince, faithful to his pledge, determined to release him, and in the attempt a bloody conflict ensued in the (chauk) square, in which his uncle Jeth Singh, and many of his clansmen, were slain.
Rivalry between Kotah and Būndi.
—The rivalry which commenced between the houses of Kotah and Bundi, on the plains of Jajau, in which Ram Singh was slain, was maintained by his son and successor, Raja Bhim, who supported the party of the Sayyids. In the prosecution of his views and revenge, Raja Bhim so far lost sight of the national character of the Rajput, as to compass his end by treachery, and beset his foe unawares while exercising his horse in the Maidan, outside the walls of the capital. His few retainers formed a circle round their chief, and gallantly defended him, though with great loss, until they reached a place of safety. Unable to aid the king, and beset by treachery, Rao Budh was compelled to seek his own safety in flight.[38] Farrukhsiyar was shortly after murdered, and the empire fell into complete disorder; when the nobles and Rajas, feeling their insecurity under the bloody and rapacious domination of the Sayyids, repaired to their several possessions.[39]Jai Singh of Jaipur attacks Būndi.
—At this period, Raja Jai Singh of Amber thought of dispossessing Budh Singh of Bundi. Rao Budh Singh was at this time his guest, having accompanied him from court to Amber. The cause of the quarrel is thus related: The Hara prince was married to a sister of Jai Singh; she had been betrothed to the emperor Bahadur [485] Shah, who, as one of the marks of his favour for the victory of Dholpur, resigned his pretensions to the fair in favour of Rao Budh. Unfortunately, she bore him no issue, and viewed with jealousy his two infant sons by another Rani, the daughter of Kalamegh of Begun, one of the sixteen chiefs of Mewar. During her lord’s absence, she feigned pregnancy, and having procured an infant, presented it as his lawful child. Rao Budh was made acquainted with the equivocal conduct of his queen, to the danger of his proper offspring, and took an opportunity to reveal her conduct to her brother. The lady, who was present, was instantly interrogated by her brother; but, exasperated either at the suspicion of her honour or the discovery of her fraud, she snatched her brother’s dagger from his girdle, and rating him as “the son of a tailor,”[40] would have slain him on the spot, had he not fled from her fury.To revenge the insult thus put upon him, the Raja of Amber determined to expel Rao Budh from Bundi, and offered the gaddi to the chief of its feudatories, the lord of Indargarh; but Deo Singh had the virtue to refuse the offer. He then had recourse to the chieftain of Karwar,[41] who could not resist the temptation. This chief, Salim Singh, was guilty of a double breach of trust; for he held the confidential office of governor of Taragarh, the citadel commanding both the city and palace.
The family dispute was, however, merely the underplot of a deeply-cherished political scheme of the prince of Amber, for the maintenance of his supremacy over the minor Rajas, to which his office of viceroy of Malwa, Ajmer, and Agra gave full scope, and he skilfully availed himself of the results of the civil wars of the Moguls. In the issue of Farrukhsiyar’s dethronement he saw the fruition of his schemes, and after a show of defending him, retired to his dominions to prosecute his views.
Amber was yet circumscribed in territory, and the consequence of its princes arose out of their position as satraps of the empire. He therefore determined to seize upon all the districts on his frontiers within his grasp, and moreover to compel the services of the chieftains who served under his banner as lieutenants of the king.
At this period there were many allodial chieftains within the bounds of Amber; as the Pachwana Chauhans about Lalsont, Gura, Nimrana, who owed neither service nor tribute to Jaipur, but led their quotas as distinct dignitaries of the empire under the flag of Amber. Even their own stock, the confederated Shaikhawats, deemed [486] themselves under no such obligation. The Bargujars of Rajor, the Jadons of Bayana, and many others, the vassalage of older days, were in the same predicament. These, being in the decline of the empire unable to protect themselves, the more readily agreed to hold their ancient allodial estates as fiefs of Amber, and to serve with the stipulated quota. But when Jai Singh’s views led him to hope he could in like manner bring the Haras to acknowledge his supremacy, he evinced both ignorance and presumption. He therefore determined to dethrone Budh Singh, and to make a Raja of his own choice hold of him in chief.
The Hara, who was then reposing on the rites of hospitality and family ties at Amber, gave Jai Singh a good opportunity to develop his views, which were first manifested to the Bundi prince by an obscure offer that he would make Amber his abode, and accept five hundred rupees daily for his train. His uncle, the brother of Jeth, who devoted himself to save his master at Agra, penetrated the infamous intentions of Jai Singh. He wrote to Bundi, and commanded that the Begun Rani should depart with her children to her father’s; and having given time for this, he by stealth formed his clansmen outside the walls of Amber, and having warned his prince of his danger, they quitted the treacherous abode. Raja Budh, at the head of three hundred Haras, feared nothing. He made direct for his capital, but they were overtaken at Pancholas, on the mutual frontier, by the select army under the five principal chieftains of Amber. The little band was enclosed, when a desperate encounter ensued, Rajput to Rajput. Every one of the five leaders of Amber was slain, with a multitude of their vassals; and the cenotaphs of the lords of Isarda, Sarwar, and Bhawar still afford evidence of Hara revenge. The uncle of Bundi was slain, and the valiant band was so thinned, that it was deemed unwise to go to Bundi, and by the intricacies of the Plateau they reached Begun in safety. This dear-bought success enabled Jai Singh to execute his plan, and Dalil Singh, of Karwar, espoused the daughter of Amber, and was invested with the title of Rao Raja of Bundi.
Taking advantage of the distress of the elder branch of his house, Raja Bhim of Kotah, now strictly allied with Ajit of Marwar and the Sayyids, prosecuted the old feud for superiority, making the Chambal the boundary, and seizing upon all the fiscal lands of Bundi east of this stream (excepting the Kothris), which he attached to Kotah.
Death of Rāo Būdh Singh.
—Thus beset by enemies on all sides, Budh Singh, after many fruitless attempts to [487] recover his patrimony, in which much Hara blood was uselessly shed, died in exile at Begun, leaving two sons, Ummed Singh and Dip Singh.The sons of Rao Budh were soon driven even from the shelter of the maternal abode; for, at the instigation of their enemy of Amber, the Rana sequestrated Begun. Pursued by this unmanly vengeance, the brave youths collected a small band, and took refuge in the wilds of Pachel, whence they addressed Durjansal, who had succeeded Raja Bhim at Kotah. This prince had a heart to commiserate their misfortunes, and the magnanimity not only to relieve them, but to aid them in the recovery of their patrimony.
1. [The dates are uncertain: that in the margin is from IGI, ix. 80. Prinsep (Useful Tables, 105) gives 1575. Blochmann (Āīn, i. 410) says, “he had been dead for some time in 1001 Hijri,” A.D. 1592.]
2. [4 miles N. of Udaipur city.]
3. His fame is immortalized by a descendant of the bard Chand, in the works already mentioned, as bearing his name, the Hamir-raesa and Hamir-kavya.
4. The Raja Man of Amber is styled, in the poetic chronicle of the Haras, ‘the shade of the Kali Yuga’: a powerful figure, to denote that his baneful influence and example, in allying himself by matrimonial ties with the imperialists, denationalized the Rajput character. In refusing to follow this example, we have presented a picture of patriotism in the life of Rana Partap of Mewar. Rao Surjan avoided by convention what the Chitor prince did by arms.
5. We may here remark that the succeeding portion of the annals of Bundi is a free translation of an historical sketch drawn up for me by the Raja of Bundi from his own records, occasionally augmented from the bardic chronicle. [This was Akbar’s second attack on Ranthambhor, the first (A.D. 1558-60) having been unsuccessful. It was taken on 19th March 1569 (Akbarnāma, ii. 132 f., 494). Smith (Akbar, the Great Mogul, 98 ff.) quotes the narrative in the text, which he considers trustworthy.]
6. Dola is the term for a princess affianced to the king.
7. An ancient institution of the Timurian kings, derived from their Tartar ancestry. For a description of this festival see Vol. I. p. 400, and Āīn, i. 276 f. [See the lively account of these fairs by Bernier (p. 272 f.). They were held in the Mīna, or ‘heavenly,’ bāzār, near the Mīna Masjid, or mosque, in the Agra Fort (Syad Muhammad Latif, Agra, 75 f.).]
9. Sijdah, similar to the kotow of China. Had our ambassador possessed the wit of Rao Surthan of Sirohi, who, when compelled to pay homage to the king, determined at whatever hazard not to submit to this degradation, he might have succeeded in his mission to the ‘son of heaven.’ For the relation of this anecdote see Vol. II. p. 990. [For the Mughal forms of salutation see Āīn, i. 158 f.]
10. [The Mahārāo Rāo of Būndi still has a house, somewhat dilapidated, near the Rāj Mandir and Sītala Ghāt at Benares. The right of sanctuary has ceased (E. Graves, Kashi, 1909, p. 55).]
11. This conjoint act of obtaining the castle of Ranthambhor is confirmed in the annals of the chieftains of Kotharia, of the same original stock as the Haras: though a Purbia Chauhan. I knew him very well, as also one of the same stock, of Bedla, another of the sixteen Pattayats of Mewar.
12. [Gondwāna is the term applied to the Sātpura plateau in the Central Provinces (IGI, xii. 321 ff.). The campaign was begun by Āsaf Khan in A.D. 1564. The Bāri in the text, a word meaning ‘dwelling,’ possibly refers to Chauragarh, now in the Narsinghpur District (Smith, Akbar, the Great Mogul, 69 ff.). Rāo Surjan was governor of Garha-Katanka or Gondwāna, whence he was transferred to Chunār (Āīn, i. 409).]
14. [Akbar began to reside at Agra in A.D. 1558, and built the fort in 1565-6. The first campaign in Gujarāt took place in 1572. Surat was captured in February 1573.]
15. [Ahmadnagar was stormed in August 1600. According to Ferishta (iii. 312) Chānd Bībi was killed by her Deccan troops because she was treating for surrender. By another story, she was poisoned (Smith, Akbar, the Great Mogul, 272).]
16. [There is an error here. Akbar died in 1605; Jodh Bāi died, it is said by poison, in 1619 or 1622.]
17. See Vol. I. p. 408. [The tale seems almost incredible, but Akbar did remove some of his enemies by poison, and the story was the subject of Court gossip (Manucci i. 150). Akbar seems to have died from cancer of the bowels (Elliot-Dowson v. 541, vi. 115, 168 f.). Smith (Akbar, the Great Mogul, 325 f.) disbelieves the story, but suspects that he may have been poisoned by some one. See Irvine’s note on Manucci iv. 420.]
18. He held Kotah in separate grant from the king during fifteen years.
19. He obtained the town of Dipri (on the Chambal), with twenty-seven villages, in appanage.
20. [Parvez died from apoplexy at Burhānpur, 28th October 1626 (Beale, Dict. Oriental Biography, s.v. Parwīz Sultān; Dow 2nd ed. iii. 88).]
21. There are about fifty families, his descendants, forming a community round Nimoda.
22. This trait in the character of Rao Ratan forcibly reminds us of a similar case which occurred at Ghazni, and is related by Ferishta [i. 86 f.] in commemoration of the justice of Mahmud.
23. These, the three great fiefs of Bundi,—Indargarh, Balwan, and Antardah,—are now all alienated from Bundi by the intrigues of Zalim Singh of Kotah. It was unfortunate for the Bundi Rao, when both these States were admitted to an alliance, that all these historical points were hid in darkness. It would be yet abstract and absolute justice that we should negotiate the transfer of the allegiance of these chieftains to their proper head of Bundi. It would be a matter of little difficulty, and the honour would be immense to Bundi and no hardship to Kotah, but a slight sacrifice of a power of protection to those who no longer require it. All of these chiefs were the founders of clans, called after them, Indarsalot, Berisalot, Mohkamsinghot; the first can muster fifteen hundred Haras under arms. Jaipur having imposed a tribute on these chieftains, Zalim Singh undertook, in the days of predatory warfare, to be responsible for it; for which he received that homage and service due to Bundi, then unable to protect them. The simplest mode of doing justice would be to make these chiefs redeem their freedom from tribute to Jaipur, by the payment of so many years’ purchase, which would relieve them altogether from Zalim Singh, and at the same time be in accordance with our treaties, which prohibit such ties between the States.
24. Thana [about 20 miles E. of Jhalāwar], formerly called Jajawar, is the only fief of the twelve sons of Ratan which now pays obedience to its proper head. The Maharaja Bikramajit is the lineal descendant of Maha Singh, and if alive, the earth bears not a more honourable, brave, or simple-minded Rajput. He was the devoted servant of his young prince, and my very sincere and valued friend; but we shall have occasion to mention the ‘lion-killer’ in the Personal Narrative.
25. [For this campaign see Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, i. 264 ff.; Grant Duff 70. Bidar was stormed in March 1657. The gallantry of Chhattarsāl is commended by Jadunath Sarkar i. 272, ii. 6.]
26. The reader will observe, as to the phraseology of these important occurrences, that the language is that of the original: it is, in fact, almost a verbatim translation from the memoirs of these princes in the Bundi archives.
27. The Rajput prince, who drew up this character, seems to have well studied Aurangzeb, and it is gratifying to find such concurrence with every authority. But could such a character be eventually mistaken?
29. [Or Samūgarh, 29th May 1658.]
30. [The defeat of Dāra Shikoh at Dholpur preceded the battle of Samūgarh-Fatehābād: it was at Samūgarh that Chhattarsāl was killed (Jadunath Sarkar, ii. 37 ff.).]
31. [The temple of Keshorāi, or Kesava Krishna, is on the N. bank of the Chambal, 12 miles below Kotah (Rājputāna Gazetteer, 1879, i. 238).]
32. [Indargarh about 30 miles N. of Būndi city: Khatoli 20 miles E. of Indargarh.]
33. It is a fact worthy of notice, that the most intrepid of the Rajput princely cavaliers are of a very devout frame of mind.
34. [Rāo Bhāo Singh died between March 1677 and February 1678 (Manucci ii. 402).]
35. Bhim Singh, who had the fief of Gugor bestowed on him, had a son, Kishan Singh, who succeeded him, and was put to death by Aurangzeb. Aniruddh was the son of Kishan.
36. It is useless to repeat that this is a literal translation from the records and journals of the Hara princes, who served the emperors.
37. This catastrophe will be related in the Personal Narrative.
38. Vide Vol. I. p. 473, et passim, in which the Bundi Annals are corroborated by the Annals of Mewar, and by an autograph letter of Raja Jai Singh of Amber, dated the 19th Phalgun, S. 1775 (A.D. 1719).
39. These subjects being already discussed in Vol. I. would have had no place here, were it not necessary to show how accurately the Bundi princes recorded events, and to rescue them from the charge of having no historical documents.
40. This lady was sister to Chamanji, elder brother to Jai Singh, and heir-apparent to the gaddi of Amber, who was put to death by Jai Singh. To this murder the Rathor bard alludes in the couplet given in their Annals, see Vol. II. p. 1059. ‘Chamanji’ ['flower-bed'] is the title of the heirs-apparent of Amber. I know not whether Chamanji, which is merely a term of endearment, may not be Bijai Singh, whose captivity we have related. See p. 1349.
41. [About 35 miles N. of Būndi city.]
CHAPTER 4
Mahārāo Ummed Singh, A.D. 1743-1804.
—Ummeda was but thirteen years of age on the death of his house’s foe, the Raja of Amber, in S. 1800 (A.D. 1744). As soon as the event was known to him, putting himself at the head of his clansmen, he attacked and carried Patan and Gainoli.[1] “When it was heard that the son of Budh Singh was awake, the ancient Haras flocked to his standard,” and Durjansal of Kotah, rejoicing to see the real Hara blood thus displayed, nobly sent his aid.Jaipur attacks Kotah.
—Isari Singh, who was now lord of Amber, pursuing his father’s policy, determined that Kotah should bend to his supremacy as well as the elder branch of Bundi. The defiance of his power avowed in the support of young Ummeda brought his views into [488] action, and Kotah was invested. But the result does not belong to this part of our history. On the retreat from Kotah, Isari sent a body of Nanakpanthis[2] to attack Ummeda in his retreat at Burh (old) Lohari, amongst the Minas, the aboriginal lords of these mountain-wilds, who had often served the cause of the Haras, notwithstanding they had deprived them of their birthright. The youthful valour and distress of young Ummeda so gained their hearts, that five thousand bowmen assembled and desired to be led against his enemies. With these auxiliaries, he anticipated his foes at Bichori, and while the nimble mountaineers plundered the camp, Ummeda charged the Jaipur army sword in hand, and slaughtered them without mercy, taking their kettledrums and standards. On the news of this defeat, another army of eighteen thousand men, under Narayandas Khatri, was sent against Ummeda. But the affair of Bichori confirmed the dispositions of the Haras: from all quarters they flocked to the standard of the young prince, who determined to risk everything in a general engagement. The foe had reached Dablana.[3] On the eve of attack, young Ummeda went to propitiate ‘the lady of Situn,’[4] the tutelary divinity of his race; and as he knelt before the altar of Asapurna (the fulfiller of hope), his eyes falling upon the turrets of Bundi, then held by a traitor, he swore to conquer or die.Battle of Dablāna.
—Inspired with like sentiments, his brave clansmen formed around the orange flag, the gift of Jahangir to Rao Ratan; and as they cleared the pass leading to Dablana, the foe was discovered marshalled to receive them. In one of those compact masses, termed gol, with serried lances advanced, Ummeda led his Haras to the charge. Its physical and moral impression was irresistible; and a vista was cut through the dense host opposed to them. Again they formed; and again, in spite of the showers of cannon-shot, the sword renewed its blows; but every charge was fatal to the bravest of Ummeda’s men. In the first onset fell his maternal uncle, Prithi Singh, Solanki, with the Maharaja Marjad Singh of Motra, a valiant Hara, who fell just as he launched his chakra (discus) at the head of the Khatri commander of Amber. Prayag Singh, chief of Soran, a branch of the Thana fief, was also slain, with many of inferior note. The steed of Ummeda was struck by a cannon-ball, and the intestines protruded from the wound. The intrepidity of the youthful hero, nobly seconded by his kin and clan, was unavailing; and the chieftains, fearing he would throw away a life the preservation of which they all desired, entreated he would abandon the contest; observing, “that if he survived, Bundi must be theirs; but if he was slain, there was an end of all their hopes [489].”With grief he submitted; and as they gained the Sawali Pass, which leads to Indargarh, he dismounted to breathe his faithful steed; and as he loosened the girths, it expired. Ummeda sat down and wept. Hanja was worthy of such a mark of his esteem: he was a steed of Irak, the gift of the king to his father, whom he had borne in many an encounter. Nor was this natural ebullition of the young Hara a transient feeling: Hanja’s memory was held in veneration, and the first act of Ummeda, when he recovered his throne, was to erect a statue to the steed who bore him so nobly on the day of Dablana. It stands in the square (chauk) of the city, and receives the reverence of each Hara, who links his history with one of the brightest of their achievements, though obscured by momentary defeat.[5]
Ummeda gained Indargarh, which was close at hand, on foot; but this traitor to the name of Hara, who had acknowledged the supremacy of Amber, not only refused his prince a horse in his adversity, but warned him off the domain, asking “if he meant to be the ruin of Indargarh as well as Bundi?” Disdaining to drink water within its bounds, the young prince, stung by this perfidious mark of inhospitality, took the direction of Karwain. Its chief made amends for the other’s churlishness: he advanced to meet him, offered such aid as he had to give, and presented him with a horse. Dismissing his faithful kinsmen to their homes, and begging their swords when fortune might be kinder, he regained his old retreat, the ruined palace of Rampura, amongst the ravines of the Chambal.
Būndi recovered by Ummed Singh.
—Durjansal of Kotah, who had so bravely defended his capital against the pretensions to supremacy of Isari Singh and his auxiliary, Apa Sindhia, felt more interest than ever in the cause of Ummeda. The Kotah prince’s councils were governed and his armies led by a Bhat (bard), who, it may be inferred, was professionally inspired by the heroism of the young Hara to lend his sword as well as his muse towards reinstating him in the halls of his fathers. Accordingly, all the strength of Kotah, led by the Bhat, was added to the kinsmen and friends of Ummeda; and an attempt on Bundi was resolved. The city, whose walls were in a state of dilapidation from this continual warfare, was taken without difficulty; and the assault of the citadel of Taragarh had commenced, when the heroic Bhat received a fatal shot from a treacherous hand in his own party. His death was concealed, and a cloth thrown [490] over his body. The assailants pressed on; the usurper, alarmed, took to flight; the ‘lion’s hope’[6] was fulfilled, and Ummeda was seated on the throne of his fathers.Būndi occupied by Jaipur.
—Dalil fled to his suzerain at Amber, whose disposable forces, under the famous Khatri Keshodas, were immediately put in motion to re-expel the Hara. Bundi was invested, and having had no time given to prepare for defence, Ummeda was compelled to abandon the walls so nobly won, and “the flag of Dhundhar waved over the kunguras (battlements) of Dewa-Banga.” And let the redeeming virtue of the usurper be recorded; who, when his suzerain of Amber desired to reinstate him on the gaddi, refused “to bring a second time the stain of treason on his head, by which he had been disgraced in the opinion of mankind.”Ummed Singh in Exile.
—Ummeda, once more a wanderer, alternately courting the aid of Mewar and Marwar, never suspended his hostility to the usurper of his rights, but carried his incursions, without intermission, into his paternal domains. One of these led him to the village of Banodia: hither the Kachhwaha Rani, the widowed queen of his father, and the cause of all their miseries, had retired, disgusted with herself and the world, and lamenting, when too late, the ruin she had brought upon her husband, herself, and the family she had entered. Ummeda paid her a visit, and the interview added fresh pangs to her self-reproach. His sufferings, his heroism, brightened by adversity, originating with her nefarious desire to stifle his claims of primogeniture by a spurious adoption, awakened sentiments of remorse, of sympathy, and sorrow. Determined to make some amends, she adopted the resolution of going to the Deccan, to solicit aid for the son of Budh Singh. When she arrived on the banks of the Nerbudda a pillar was pointed out to her on which was inscribed a prohibition to any of her race to cross this stream, which like the Indus was also styled atak, or ‘forbidden.’[7] Like a true Rajputni, she broke the tablet in pieces, and threw it into the stream, observing with a jesuitical casuistry, that there was no longer any impediment when no ordinance existed. Having passed the Rubicon, she proceeded forthwith to the camp of Malhar Rao Holkar. The sister of Jai Singh, the most potent Hindu prince of India, became a suppliant to this goatherd leader[8] of a horde of plunderers, nay, adopted him as her brother to effect the redemption of Bundi for the exiled Ummeda.Malhār Rāo Holkar assists Ummed Singh.
—Malhar, without the accident of noble birth, possessed the sentiments which belong to it, and he promised all she asked. How far his compliance might be promoted by [491] another call for his lance from the Rana of Mewar, in virtue of the marriage-settlement which promised the succession of Amber to a princess of his house, the Bundi records do not tell: they refer only to the prospects of its own prince. But we may, without any reflection on the gallantry of Holkar, express a doubt how far he would have lent the aid of his horde to this sole object, had he not had in view the splendid bribe of sixty-four lakhs from the Rana, to be paid when Isari Singh should be removed, for his nephew Madho Singh.[9]Be this as it may, the Bundi chronicle states that the lady, instead of the temporary expedient of delivering Bundi, conducted the march of the Mahrattas direct on Jaipur. Circumstances favoured her designs. The character of Isari Singh had raised up enemies about his person, who seized the occasion to forward at once the views of Bundi and Mewar, whose princes had secretly gained them over to their views.
The Amber prince no sooner heard of the approach of the Mahrattas to his capital than he quitted it to offer them battle. But their strength had been misrepresented, nor was it till he reached the castle of Bagru[10] that he was undeceived and surrounded. When too late, he saw that ‘treason had done its worst,’ and that the confidence he had placed in the successor of a minister whom he had murdered, met its natural reward. The bard has transmitted in a sloka the cause of his overthrow:
‘Isari forfeited all hopes of regality, when he slew that great minister Keshodas.’
Jaipur forced to restore Ummed Singh.
—The sons of this minister, named Harsahai and Gursahai, betrayed their prince to the ‘Southron,’ by a false return of their numbers, and led him to the attack with means totally inadequate. Resistance to a vast numerical superiority would have been madness: he retreated to the castle of this fief of Amber, where, after a siege of ten days, he was forced not only to sign a deed for the surrender of Bundi, and the renunciation of all claims to it for himself and his descendants, but to put, in full acknowledgment of his rights, the tika on the forehead of Ummeda. With this deed, and accompanied by the contingent of Kotah, they proceeded to Bundi; the traitor was expelled; and while rejoicings were making to celebrate the installation of Ummeda, the funereal pyre was lighted at Amber, to consume the mortal remains of his foe. Raja Isari could [492] not survive his disgrace, and terminated his existence and hostility by poison, thereby facilitating the designs both of Bundi and Mewar.Thus in S. 1805 (A.D. 1749) Ummeda regained his patrimony, after fourteen years of exile, during which a traitor had pressed the royal ‘cushion’ of Bundi. But this contest deprived it of many of its ornaments, and, combined with other causes, at length reduced it almost to its intrinsic worth, ‘a heap of cotton.’ Malhar Rao, the founder of the Holkar State, in virtue of his adoption as the brother of the widow-queen of Budh Singh, had the title of Mamu, or uncle, to young Ummeda. But true to the maxims of his race, he did not take his buckler to protect the oppressed, at the impulse of those chivalrous notions so familiar to the Rajput, but deemed a portion of the Bundi territory a better incentive, and a more unequivocal proof of gratitude, than the titles of brother and uncle. Accordingly, he demanded, and obtained by regular deed of surrender, the town and district of Patan on the left bank of the Chambal.[11]
The sole equivalent (if such it could be termed) for these fourteen years of usurpation, were the fortifications covering the palace and town, now called Taragarh (the ‘Star-fort’), built by Dalil Singh. Madho Singh, who succeeded to the gaddi of Jaipur, followed up the designs commenced by Jai Singh, and which had cost his successor his life, to render the smaller States of Central India dependent on Amber. For this Kotah had been besieged, and Ummeda expelled, and as such policy could not be effected by their unassisted means, it only tended to the benefit of the auxiliaries, who soon became principals, to the prejudice and detriment of all. Madho Singh, having obtained the castle of Ranthambhor, a pretext was afforded for these pretensions to supremacy. From the time of its surrender by Rao Surjan to Akbar, the importance of this castle was established by its becoming the first Sarkar, or ‘department,’ in the province of Ajmer, consisting of no less than ‘seventy-three mahals,’[12] or extensive fiefs, in which were comprehended not only Bundi and Kotah, and all their dependencies, but the entire State of Sheopur, and all the petty fiefs south of the Banganga, the aggregate of which now constitutes the State of Amber. In fact, with the exception of Mahmudabad in Bengal,[13] Ranthambhor was the most extensive Sarkar of the empire. In the decrepitude of the empire, this castle was maintained by a veteran commander [493] as long as funds and provisions lasted; but these failing, in order to secure it from falling into the hands of the Mahrattas, and thus being lost for ever to the throne, he sought out a Rajput prince, to whom he might entrust it. He applied to Bundi; but the Hara, dreading to compromise his fealty if unable to maintain it, refused the boon; and having no alternative, he resigned it to the prince of Amber as a trust which he could no longer defend.
Out of this circumstance alone originated the claims of Jaipur to tribute from the Kothris, or fiefs in Haraoti; claims without a shadow of justice; but the maintenance of which, for the sake of the display of supremacy and paltry annual relief, has nourished half a century of irritation, which it is high time should cease.[14]
Zālim Singh of Kotah.
—It was the assertion of this supremacy over Kotah as well as Bundi which first brought into notice the most celebrated Rajput of modern times, Zalim Singh of Kotah. Rao Durjansal, who then ruled that State, had too much of the Hara blood to endure such pretensions as the casual possession of Ranthambhor conferred upon his brother prince of Amber, who considered that, as the late lieutenant of the king, he had a right to transfer his powers to himself. The battle of Bhatwara, in S. 1817 (A.D. 1761), for ever extinguished these pretensions, on which occasion Zalim Singh, then scarcely of age, mainly contributed to secure the independence of the State he was ultimately destined to govern. But this exploit belongs to the annals of Kotah, and would not have been here alluded to, except to remark, that had the Bundi army joined Kotah in this common cause, they would have redeemed its fiefs from the tribute they are still compelled to pay to Jaipur.Ummeda’s active mind was engrossed with the restoration of the prosperity which the unexampled vicissitudes of the last fifteen years had undermined; but he felt his spirit cramped and his energies contracted by the dominant influence and avarice of the insatiable Mahrattas, through whose means he recovered his capital; still there was as yet no fixed principle of government recognized, and the Rajputs, who [494] witnessed their periodical visitations like flights of locusts over their plains, hoped that this scourge would be equally transitory. Under this great and pernicious error, all the Rajput States continued to mix these interlopers in their national disputes, which none had more cause to repent than the Haras of Bundi. But the hold which the Mahrattas retained upon the lands of ‘Dewa Banga’ would never have acquired such tenacity, had the bold arm and sage mind of Ummeda continued to guide the vessel of the State throughout the lengthened period of his natural existence: his premature political decease adds another example to the truth, that patriarchal, and indeed all governments are imperfect where the laws are not supreme.