CHAPTER 18

Overthrow of the predatory system—Alliances with the Rajput States—Envoy appointed to Mewar—Arrives at Udaipur—Reception—Description of the Court—Political geography of Mewar—The Rana—His character—His ministers—Plans—Exiles recalled—Merchants invited—Bhilwara established—Assembly of the nobles—Charter ratified; Resumptions of land; Anecdotes of the Chiefs of Arja, Badnor, Badesar, and Amet—Landed tenures in Mewar—Village rule—Freehold (_bapota_) of Mewar—Bhumia, or allodial vassals: Character and privileges—Great Register of Patents—Traditions exemplifying right in the soil—The Patel; his origin; character—Assessment of land-rents—General results 547

ILLUSTRATIONS

Bust of Colonel James Tod _Frontispiece_ TO FACE PAGE Section of Country 10

List of Thirty-six Royal Races 98

Salūmbar 216

Sanskrit Grant 232

Palace of Udaipur 247

Palace of Rāna Bhīm 312

Ruins of Fortress of Bayāna 352

Chitor 382

Rājmahall 428

Jagmandir 432

Mahārāja Bhīm Singh 512

Facsimile of Native Drawing 572

INTRODUCTION

James Tod, the Author of this work, son of James Tod and Mary Heatly, was born at Islington on March 20, 1782. His father, James Tod the first, eldest son of Henry Tod of Bo’ness and Janet Monteath, was born on October 26, 1745. In 1780 he married in New York Mary, daughter of Andrew Heatly, a member of a family originally settled at Mellerston, Co. Berwick, where they had held a landed estate for some four centuries. Andrew Heatly emigrated to Rhode Island, where he died at the age of thirty-six in 1761. He had married Mary, daughter of Sueton Grant, of the family of Gartinbeg, really of Balvaddon, who left Inverness for Newport, Rhode Island, in 1725, and Temperance Talmage or Tollemache, granddaughter of one of the first and principal settlers at Easthampton, Rhode Island. He had been forced to emigrate to America during the Protectorate, owing to his loyalty to King Charles I. James Tod, the first, left America, and in partnership with his brother John, became an indigo-planter at Mirzapur, in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.

James Tod, the second, was thus through his father and his uncles Patrick and S. Heatly, both members of the Civil Service of the East India Company, closely connected with India, and in 1798, being then sixteen years old, he obtained through the influence of his uncle, Patrick Heatly, a cadetship in the service of the East India Company. On his arrival at Calcutta he was attached to the 2nd European Regiment. In 1800 he was transferred, with the rank of Lieutenant, to the 14th Native Infantry, from which he passed in 1807, with the same rank, to the 25th Native Infantry. In 1805 he was appointed to the command of the escort of his friend Mr. Graeme Mercer, then Government Agent at the Camp of Daulat Rao Sindhia, who had been defeated two years before at the battle of Assaye by Sir Arthur Wellesley. In more than one passage in _The Annals_ Tod speaks of Mr. Graeme Mercer with respect and affection, and by him he was introduced to official life and Rājput and Mahratta politics. His tastes for geographical inquiries led him to undertake surveys in Rājputāna and Central India between 1812 and 1817, and he employed several native surveyors to traverse the then little-known region between Central India and the valley of the Indus.

At this period the Government of India was engaged in a project for suppressing the Pindāris, a body of lawless freebooters, of no single race, the débris of the adventurers who gained power during the decay of the Mughal Empire, and who had not been incorporated in the armies of the local powers which rose from its ruins. In 1817, to effect their suppression, the Governor-General, the Marquess of Hastings, collected the strongest British force which up to that time had been assembled in India. Two armies, acting in co-operation from north and south, converged on the banditti, and met with rapid success. Sindhia, whose power depended on the demoralized condition of Rājputāna, was overawed; Holkar was defeated; the Rāja of Nāgpur was captured; the Mahratta Peshwa became a fugitive; the Pindāris were dispersed. One of their leaders, Amīr Khān, who is frequently mentioned in Tod’s narrative, disbanded his forces, and received as his share of the spoils the Principality of Tonk, still ruled by his descendants.

In the course of this campaign Tod performed valuable services. At the beginning of the operations he supplied the British Staff with a rough map of the seat of war, and in other ways his local knowledge was utilized by the Generals in charge of the operations. In 1813 he had been promoted to the rank of Captain in command of the escort of the Resident, Mr. Richard Strachey, who nominated him to the post of his Second Assistant. In 1818 he was appointed Political Agent of Western Rājputāna, a post which he held till his retirement in June 1822. The work which he carried out in Rājputāna during this period is fully described in _The Annals_ and in his “Personal Narrative.” Owing to Mahratta oppression and the ravages of the Pindāris, the condition of the country, political, social, and economical, was deplorable. To remedy this prevailing anarchy the States were gradually brought under British control, and their relations with the paramount power were embodied in a series of treaties. In this work of reform, reconstruction, and conciliation, Tod played an active part, and the confidence and respect with which he was regarded by the Princes, Chiefs, and peasantry enabled him to interfere with good effect in tribal quarrels, to rearrange the fiefs of the minor Chiefs, and to act as arbitrator between the Rāna of Mewār and his subjects.

Tod was convinced that the miserable state of the country was chiefly due to the hesitation of the Indian Government in interfering for the re-establishment of order; and on this ground he does not hesitate to condemn the cautious policy of Lord Cornwallis during his second term of office as Governor-General. Few people at the present day would be disposed to defend the policy of non-intervention. “This policy has been condemned by historians and commentators, as well as by statesmen, soldiers, and diplomatists; by Mill and his editor, H. H. Wilson, and by Thornton; by Lord Lake and Sir John Malcolm. The mischief was done and the loss of influence was not regained for a decade. It was not till the conclusion of an expensive and protracted campaign, that the Indian Government was replaced in the position where it had been left by Wellesley. The blame for this weak and unfortunate policy must be divided between Cornwallis and Barlow, between the Court of Directors and the Board of Control.” But it was carried out in pursuance of orders from the Home Government. “The Court of Directors for some time past had been alarmed at Lord Wellesley’s vigorous foreign policy. Castlereagh at the Board of Control had taken fright, and even Pitt was carried away and committed himself to a hasty opinion that the Governor-General had acted imprudently and illegally.”[i.1]

Tod tells us little of his relations with the Supreme Government during his four years’ service as Political Agent. He was notoriously a partisan of the Rājput princes, particularly those of Mewār and Mārwār; he is never tired of abusing the policy of the Emperor Aurangzeb, and, fortunately for the success of his work, Muhammadans form only a slight minority in the population of Rājputāna. This attitude naturally exposed him to criticism. Writing in 1824, Bishop Heber,[i.2] while he recognizes that he was held in affection and respect by “all the upper and middling classes of society,” goes on to say: “His misfortune was that, in consequence of his favouring the native princes so much, the Government of Calcutta were led to suspect him of corruption, and consequently to narrow his powers and associate other officers with him in his trust till he was disgusted and resigned his place. They are now, I believe, well satisfied that their suspicions were groundless. Captain Todd (_sic_) is strenuously vindicated from the charge by all the officers with whom I have conversed, and some of whom had abundant means of knowing what the natives themselves thought of him.” The Bishop’s widow, in a later issue of the _Diary_ of her husband, adds that "she is anxious to remove any unfavourable impressions which may exist on the subject by stating, that she has now the authority of a gentleman, who at the time was a member of the Supreme Council, to say, that no such imputation was ever fixed on Colonel Todd´s (_sic_) character."

Whatever may have been the real reason for the premature termination of his official career at the age of forty, ill-health was put forward as the ostensible cause of his retirement. He had served for about twenty-four years in the Indian plains without any leave; he had long suffered from malaria; and, though he hardly suspected it at the time, an attempt had been made by one of his servants to poison him with Datura; he had met with a serious accident when, by chance or design, his elephant-driver dashed his howdah against the gate of Begūn fort in eastern Mewār. In spite of all this, he retained sufficient health to make, on the eve of his departure from India, the extensive tour recorded in his _Travels in Western India_. Neither on his retirement, nor at any subsequent period, were his services, official and literary, rewarded by any distinction.

During his seventeen years’ service in Central India and Rājputāna he showed indefatigable industry in the collection of the materials which were partially used in his great work. His taste for the study of history and antiquities, ethnology, popular religion, and superstitions was stimulated by the pioneer work of Sir W. Jones and other writers in the _Asiatic Researches_. He was not a trained philologist, and he gained much of his information from his Guru, the Jain Yati Gyānchandra, and the Brāhman Pandits whom he employed to make inquiries on his behalf. They, too, were not trained scholars in the modern sense of the term, and many of his mistakes are due to his rashness in following their guidance.

His life was prolonged for thirteen years after he left India. In 1824 he attained the rank of Major, and in 1826 that of Lieutenant-Colonel. Much of his time in England was spent in arranging his materials and compiling the works upon which his reputation depends: _The Annals_, published between 1829 and 1832; and his _Travels in Western India_, published after his death, in 1839. He was in close relations with the Royal Asiatic Society, of which he acted for a time as Librarian. In this fine collection of books and manuscripts he gained much of that discursive learning which appears in _The Annals_. He presented to the Society numerous manuscripts, inscriptions, and coins. The fine series of drawings made to illustrate his works by Captain P. T. Waugh and a native artist named Ghāsi, have recently been rearranged and catalogued in the Library of the Society. They well deserve inspection by any one interested in Indian art. He also made frequent tours on the Continent, and on one occasion visited the great soldier, Count Benoit de Boigne, who died in 1830, leaving a fortune of twenty millions of francs.

On November 16, 1826, Tod married Julia, daughter of Dr. Henry Clutterbuck, an eminent London surgeon, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. In 1835 he settled in a house in Regent’s Park, and on November 17 of the same year he died suddenly while transacting business at the office of his bankers, Messrs. Robarts of Lombard Street. The names of his descendants will appear from the pedigree appended to this Introduction.

_The Annals of Rajasthan_, the two volumes of which were, by permission, dedicated to Kings George IV. and William IV. respectively, was received with considerable favour. A contemporary critic deals with it in the following terms:[i.3] “Colonel Tod deserves the praise of a most delightful and industrious collector of materials for history, and his own narrative style in many places displays great freedom, vigour, and perspicuity. Though not always correct, and occasionally stiff and formal, it is not seldom highly animated and picturesque. The faults of his work are inseparable from its nature; it would have been almost impossible to mould up into one continuous history the distinct and separate annals of the various Rajput races. The patience of the reader is thus unavoidably put to a severe trial, in having to reascend to the origin, and again to trace downwards the parallel annals of some new tribe—sometimes interwoven with, sometimes entirely distinct from, those which have gone before. But, on the whole, as no one but Colonel Tod could have gathered the materials for such a work, there are not many who could have used them so well. No candid reader can arise from its perusal without a very high sense of the character of the Author—no scholar, more certainly, without respect for his attainments, and gratitude for the service which he has rendered to a branch of literature, if far from popular, by no means to be estimated, as to its real importance, by the extent to which it may command the favour of an age of duodecimos.”

In estimating the value of the local authorities on which the history is based, Tod reposed undue confidence in the epics and ballads composed by the poet Chānd and other tribal bards. It is believed that more than one of these poems have disappeared since his time, and these materials have been only in part edited and translated. The value to be placed on bardic literature is a question not free from difficulty. “On the faith of ancient songs, the uncertain but the only memorials of barbarism,” says Gibbon, “they [Cassiodorus and Jornandes] deduced the first origin of the Goths.”[i.4] The poet may occasionally record facts of value, but in his zeal for the honour of the tribe which he represents, he is tempted to exaggerate victories, to minimize defeats. This is a danger to which Indian poets are particularly exposed. Their trade is one of fulsome adulation, and in a state of society like that of the Rājputs, where tribal and personal rivalries flourish, the temptation to give a false colouring to history is great. In fact, bardic literature is often useful, not as evidence of occurrences in antiquity, but as an indication of the habits and beliefs current in the age of the writer. It exhibits the facts, not as they really occurred, but as the writer and his contemporaries supposed that they occurred. The mind of the poet, with all its prejudices, projects itself into the distant past. Good examples of the methods of the bards will appear in the attempt to connect the Rāthors with the dynasty of Kanauj, or to represent the Chauhāns as the founders of an empire in the Deccan.

Recent investigation has thrown much new light on the origin of the Rājputs. A wide gulf lies between the Vedic Kshatriya and the Rājput of medieval times which it is now impossible to bridge. Some clans, with the help of an accommodating bard, may be able to trace their lineage to the Kshatriyas of Buddhist times, who were recognized as one of the leading elements in Hindu society, and, in their own estimation, stood even higher than the Brāhmans.[i.5] But it is now certain that the origin of many clans dates from the Saka or Kushān invasion, which began about the middle of the second century B.C., or more certainly, from that of the White Huns who destroyed the Gupta empire about A.D. 480. The Gurjara tribe connected with the latter people adopted Hinduism, and their leaders formed the main stock from which the higher Rājput families sprang. When these new claimants to princely honours accepted the faith and institutions of Brahmanism, the attempt would naturally be made to affiliate themselves to the mythical heroes whose exploits are recorded in the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyana. Hence arose the body of legend recorded in _The Annals_ by which a fabulous origin from the Sun or Moon is ascribed to two great Rājput branches, a genealogy claimed by other princely families, like the Incas of Peru or the Mikado of Japan. Or, as in the case of the Rāthors of Mārwār, an equally fabulous story was invented to link them with the royal house of Kanauj, one of the genuine old Hindu ruling families. The same feeling lies at the root of the _Aeneid_ of Virgil, the court poet of the new empire. The clan of the emperor Augustus, the Iulii, a patrician family of Alban origin, was represented as the heirs of Iulus, the supposed son of Aeneas and founder of Alba Longa, thus linking the new Augustan house with the heroes of the _Iliad_.

One of the merits of Tod’s work is that, though his knowledge of ethnology was imperfect, and he was unable to reject the local chronicles of the Rājputs, he advocated, in anticipation of the conclusions of later scholars, the so-called “Scythic” origin of the race. To make up for the lack of direct evidence of Scythian manners and sociology to support this position, he was forced to rely on certain superficial resemblances of custom and belief, not between Rājputs, Scythians and Huns, but between Rājputs, Getae or Thracians, or the Germans of Tacitus. In the same way a supposed identity of name led him to identify the Jāts of northern India with the Getae or with the Goths, and finally to bring them with the Jutes into Kent.

A similar process of groping in semi-darkness induced him to make constant references to serpent worship, which, as Sir E. Tylor remarked, "years ago fell into the hands of speculative writers who mixed it up with occult philosophies, druidical mysteries, and that portentous nonsense called the ‘Arkite symbolism,’ till now sober students hear the very name of ophiolatry with a shudder."[i.6] He repeatedly speaks of a people whom he calls the “Takshaks,” apparently one of the Scythian tribes. There is, however, no reason to believe that serpent worship formed an important element in the beliefs of the Scythians, or to suppose that the cult, as we observe it in India, is of other than indigenous origin.

The more recent views of the origin of the Rājputs may be briefly illustrated in connexion with some of the leading septs. Dr. Vincent A. Smith holds that the term Kshatriya was not an ethnical but an occupational designation. Rājaputra, ‘son of a Rāja,’ seems to have been a name applied to the cadets of ruling houses who, according to the ancient custom of tribal society, were in the habit of seeking their fortunes abroad, winning by some act of valour the hand of the princess whose land they visited, and with it the succession to the kingdom vested in her under the system of Mother Right. Sir James Frazer has described various forms of this mode of succession in the case of the Kings of Rome, Ashanti, Uganda, in certain Greek States, and other places.[i.7] Dr. Smith goes on to say: “The term Kshatriya was, I believe, always one of very vague meaning, simply denoting the Hindu ruling classes which did not claim Brahmanical descent. Occasionally a rājā might be a Brahman by caste, but the Brahman’s place at court was that of a minister rather than that of king.”[i.8] This office in Rajputana, as we learn from numerous instances in _The Annals_, was often taken by members of the Bania or mercantile class, because the Brāhmans of the Desert, by their laxity of practice, had acquired an equivocal reputation, and were generally illiterate. The Rājput has always, until recent times, favoured the Bhāt or bard more than the Brāhman.

The group denoted by the name Kshatriya or Rājput thus depended on status rather than on descent, and it was therefore possible for foreigners to be introduced into the tribes without any violation of the prejudices of caste, which was then only partially developed. In later times, under Brāhman guidance, the rules of endogamy, exogamy, and _confarreatio_ have been definitely formulated. But as the power of the priesthood increased, it was necessary to disguise this admission of foreigners under a convenient fiction. Hence arose the legend, told in two different forms in _The Annals_, which describes how, by a solemn act of purification or initiation, under the superintendence of one of the ancient Vedic Rishis or inspired saints, the “fire-born” septs were created to help the Brāhmans in repressing Buddhism, Jainism, or other heresies, and in establishing the ancient traditional Hindu social policy, the temporary downfall of which, under the stress of foreign invasions, is carefully concealed in the Hindu sacred literature. This privilege was, we are told, confined to four septs, known as Agnikula, or ‘fire-born’—the Pramār, Parihār, Chālukya or Solanki, and the Chauhān. But there is good reason to believe that the Pramār was the only sept which laid claim to this distinction before the time of the poet Chānd, who flourished in the twelfth century of our era.[i.9] The local tradition in Rājputāna was so vague that in one version of the story Vasishtha, in the other Visvāmitra, is said to have been the officiating priest.

In the case of the Sesodias of Mewār, Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar has given reasons to believe that Gehlot or Guhilot means simply ‘son of Guhila,’ an abbreviation of Guhadatta, the name of its founder.[i.10] He is said to have belonged to the Gurjara stock, kinsmen or allies of the Huns who entered India about the sixth century of our era, and founded a kingdom in Rājputāna with its capital at Bhilmāl or Srīmāl, about fifty miles from Mount Ābu, the scene of the regeneration of the Rājputs. This branch, which took the name of Maitrika, is said to be closely connected with the Mer tribe, which gave its name to Merwāra, and is fully described in _The Annals_. The actual conqueror of Chitor, Bāpa or Bappa, is said in inscriptions to have belonged to the branch known as Nāgar, or ‘City’ Brāhmans which has its present headquarters at the town of Vadnagar in the Baroda State. This conversion of a Brāhman into a Rājput is at first sight startling, but the fact implies that the institution of caste, as we observe it, was then only imperfectly established, and there was no difficulty in believing that a Brāhman could be ancestor of a princely house which now claims descent from the Sun. As will appear later on, Bāpa seems to be a historical personage. These facts help us to understand the strange story in _The Annals_, which tells how Gohāditya received inauguration as chief by having his forehead smeared with blood drawn from the finger of a Bhīl, a form of the blood covenant which appears among many savage tribes.[i.11] In those days no definite line was drawn between the Bhīls, now a wild forest tribe, and the Rājputs. The Bhīls were the free lords of the jungle, original owners of the soil, and though they practised rites and followed customs repulsive to orthodox Hindus, they did not share in the impurity which attached to foul outcastes like the Dom or the Chandāla. As the Bhīls were believed to be autochthonous, and thus understood the methods of controlling or conciliating the local spirits, by this form of inauguration they passed on their knowledge to the Rājputs whom they accepted as their lords. The relations of the Mīnas, another jungle tribe of the same class, with the Kachhwāhas of Jaipur were of the same kind.

According to the bardic legend given in _The Annals_, the Rāthors, the second great Rājput clan, owed their origin to a migration of a body of its members to the western Desert when the territory of Kanauj was conquered by Shihābu-d-dīn in A.D. 1193. But it is now certain that the ruling dynasty of Kanauj belonged, not to the Rāthor, but to the Gaharwār clan, and that the first Rāthor settlement in Rājputāna must have occurred anterior to the conquest of Kanauj by the Musalmāns. An inscription, dated A.D. 997, found in the ruins of the ancient town of Hathūndi or Hastikūndi in the Bali Hakūmat of the Jodhpur State, names four Rāthor Rājas who reigned there in the tenth century.[i.12] The local legend is an attempt to connect the line of Rāthor princes with the Kanauj dynasty. It has been suggested that the Deccan dynasty of the Rāshtrakūtas which, in name at least, is identical with Rāthor, reigning at Nāsik or Malkhed from A.D. 753 to 973, was connected with the Reddis or Raddis, a caste of cultivators which seem to have migrated from Madras into the Deccan at an early period. But any racial connexion between the Deccan Reddis and the Rāthors of Rājputāna is very doubtful.[i.13]

The Chandel clan, ranked in _The Annals_ among the Thirty-six Royal Races, is believed to be closely connected with the Bhars and Gonds, forest tribes of Bundelkhand and the Central Provinces. Mr. R. V. Russell prefers to connect them with the Bhars alone, on the ground that the Gonds, according to the best traditions, entered the Central Provinces from the south, and made no effective settlement in Bundelkhand, the headquarters of the Chandels.[i.14] But there was a Gond settlement in the Hamīrpur District of Bundelkhand, and the close connexion between the Gonds and the Chandels began in what is now the Chhatarpur State.

The results of recent investigations into Rājput ethnology are thus of great importance, and enable us to correct the bardic legends on which the genealogies recorded in _The Annals_ were founded. Much remains to be done before the question can be finally settled. The local Rājput traditions and the ballads of the bards must be collected and edited; the ancient sites in Rājputāna must be excavated; physical measurements, now somewhat discredited as a test of racial affinities, must be made in larger numbers and by more scientific methods. But the general thesis that some of the nobler Rājput septs are descended from Gurjaras or other foreigners, while others are closely connected with the autochthonous races, may be regarded as definitely proved.

One of the most valuable parts of _The Annals_ is the chapter describing the popular religion of Mewār, the festival and rites in honour of Gauri, the Mother goddess. There are also many incidental notices of cults and superstitions scattered through the work. A race of warriors like the Rājputs naturally favours the worship of Siva who, as the successor of Rudra, the Vedic storm-god, was originally a terror-inspiring deity, a side of his character only imperfectly veiled by his euphemistic title of Siva, ‘the blessed or auspicious One.’ In his phallic manifestation his chief shrine is at Eklingji, ‘the single or notable phallus,’ about fourteen miles north of Udaipur city. The Rānas hold the office of priest-kings, Dīwāns or prime-ministers of the god. Their association with this deity has been explained by an inscription recently found in the temple of Nātha, ‘the Lord,’ now used as a storeroom of the Eklingji temple.[i.15] The inscription, dated A.D. 971, is in form of a dedication to Lakulīsa, a form of Siva represented as bearing a club, and refers to the Saiva sect known as Lakulīsa-Pāsapatas. It records the name of a king named Srī-Bappaka, ‘the moon among the princes of the Guhila dynasty,’ who reigned at a place called Nāgahvada, identified with Nāgda, an ancient town several times mentioned in _The Annals_, the ruins of which exist at the foot of the hill on which the temple of Eklingji stands. Srī-Bappaka is certainly Bāpa or Bappa, the traditional founder of the Mewār dynasty, which had at that time its capital at Nāgda. From this inscription it is clear that the Eklingji temple was in existence before A.D. 971, and, as Mr. Bhandarkar remarks, “it shows that the old tradition about Nāgendra and Bappa Rāwal’s infancy given by Tod had some historical foundation, and it is intelligible how the Rānas of Udaipur could have come to have such an intimate connexion with the temple as that of high priests, in which capacity they still officiate.” This office vested in them is a good example of one of those dynasties of priest-kings of which Sir James Frazer has given an elaborate account.[i.16]

The milder side of the Rājput character is represented in the cult of Krishna at Nāthdwāra. The Mahant or Abbot of the temple, situated at the old village of Siārh, twenty-two miles from the city of Udaipur, enjoys semi-royal state. In anticipation of the raid by Aurangzeb on Mathura, A.D. 1669-70, the ancient image of Kesavadeva, a form of Krishna, ‘He of the flowing locks,’ was removed out of reach of danger by Rāna Rāj Singh of Mewār. When the cart bearing the image arrived at Siārh, the god, by stopping the cart, is said to have expressed his intention of remaining there. This was the origin of the famous temple, still visited by crowds of pilgrims, and one of the leading seats of the Vallabhāchārya sect, ‘the Epicureans of the East,’ whose practices, as disclosed in the famous Mahārāja libel case, tried at Bombay in 1861, gave rise to grievous scandal.[i.17] The ill-feeling against this sect, aroused by these revelations, was so intense that the Mahārāja of Jaipur ordered that the two famous images of Krishna worshipped in his State, which originally came from Gokul, near Mathura, should be removed from his territories into those of the Bharatpur State.

Tod bears witness to the humanizing effect on the Rājputs of the worship of this god, whom he calls “the Apollo of Braj,” the holy land of Krishna near Mathura. He also asserts that the Emperor Akbar favoured the worship of Krishna, a feeling shared by his successors Jahāngīr and Shāh Jahān. Akbar, in his search for a new faith to supersede Islām, of which he was _parcus cultor et infrequens_, dallied with Hindu Pandits, Parsi priests, and Christian missionaries, and he was doubtless well informed about the sensuous ritual of the temple of Nāthdwāra.[i.18]

The character of the Rājputs is discussed in many passages in _The Annals_. The Author expresses marked sympathy with the people among whom his official life was spent, and he expresses gratitude for the courtesy and confidence which they bestowed upon him. This applies specially to the Sesodias of Mewār and the Rāthors of Mārwār, with whom he lived in the closest intimacy. He shows, on the other hand, a decided prejudice against the Kachhwāhas of Jaipur, of whose diplomacy he disapproved. This feeling, we may suspect, was due in part to their hesitation in accepting the British alliance, a policy in which he was deeply interested.

The virtues of the Rājput lie on the surface—their loyalty, devotion, and gallantry; their chivalry towards women; their regard for their national customs. Their weaknesses—though Tod does not enumerate them in detail—are obvious from a study of their history—their instability of character, their liability to sudden outbreaks of passion, their tendency to yield to panic on the battlefield, their inability, as a result of their tribal system, to form a permanent combination against a public enemy, their occasional faithlessness to their chiefs and allies, their excessive use of opium. These defects they share with most orientals, but, on the whole, they compare favourably with other races in the Indian Empire. There is much in their character and institutions which reminds us of the Gauls as pictured by Mommsen in a striking passage.[i.19] Rājput women are described as virtuous, affectionate, and devoted, taking part in the control of the family, sharing with their husbands the dangers of war and sport, contemptuous of the coward, and exercising a salutary influence in public and domestic affairs.

Strangely enough, Tod omits to give us a detailed account of their marriage regulations and ceremonies. According to Mr. E. H. Kealy,[i.20] while male children under one year old exceed the females, “the excess is not sufficiently great to justify the conclusion that female babies are murdered, nor is the theory that female infants lost their lives by neglect supported by the statistics. Unhappily the returns show that a high proportion of married women is combined with a very low percentage of females as compared with males between the ages of ten and fourteen, the early stage of married life, and this defect is largely due to premature cohabitation, lack of medical attendance, and of sanitary precautions.” No one can read without horror the many narratives of the Johar, the final sacrifice by which women in the hour of defeat gave their lives to save their honour, and of the numerous cases of Sati. Both these customs are now only a matter of history, but so late as 1879 General Hervey was able to count at the Bikaner palace the handmarks of at least thirty-seven widows who ascended the pyre with their lords.[i.21]

Much space in _The Annals_ is occupied by a review of the so-called ‘Feudal’ system in Rājputāna. Tod was naturally attracted in the course of his discursive reading by Henry Hallam’s _View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages_, which first appeared in 1818, four years before Tod resigned his Indian appointment. Hallam himself was careful to point out that “it is of great importance to be on our guard against seeming analogies which vanish away when they are closely observed.”[i.22] This warning Tod unguardedly overlooked. Hallam recognized that Feudalism was an institution the ultimate origin of which is still, to some extent, obscure. It possibly began with the desire for protection, the _rakhwāli_ of the Rājputs, but it seems to have been ultimately based on the private law of Rome, while the influence of the Church, interested in securing its endowments, was a factor in its evolution. In its completed form it represented the final stage of a process which began under the Frankish conquerors of Gaul. At any rate, it was of European origin, and though it absorbed much that was common to the types of tribal organization found in other parts of the world, it was moulded by the political, social, and economical environment amidst which it was developed. Hence, while it is possible to trace, as Tod has done, certain analogies between the tribal institutions of the Rājputs and the social organization of medieval Europe—analogies of feudal incidents connected with Reliefs, Fines upon alienation, Escheats, Aids, Wardship, and Marriage—these analogies, when more closely examined, are found to be in the main superficial. If we desire to undertake a comparative study of the Rājput tribal system, it is unnecessary to travel to medieval Europe, while we have close at hand the social organization of more or less kindred tribes on the Indian borderland, Pathāns, Afghāns, or Baloch; or, in a more primitive stage, those of the Kandhs, Gonds, Mūndas, or Orāons. It is of little service to compare two systems of which only the nucleus is common to both, and to place side by side institutions which present only a factitious similitude, because the social development of each has progressed on different lines.

The Author’s excursions into philology are the diversions of a clever man, not of a trained scholar, but interested in the subject as an amateur. In his time the new learning on oriental subjects had only recently begun to attract the attention of scholars, of which Sir W. Jones was the prophet. Tod was a diligent student of _The Asiatic Researches_, the publication of which began at Calcutta in 1788. While much material of value is to be found in these volumes, many papers of Captain Francis Wilford and others are full of rash speculations which have not survived later criticism. Tod is not to blame because he followed the guidance of scholars who contributed articles to the leading Indian review of his time; because he was ignorant of the laws of Grimm or Verner; because, like his contemporaries, he believed that the mythology of Egypt or Palestine influenced the beliefs of the Indian people. It was his fate that many of his guesses were quoted with approval by writers like T. Maurice in his _Indian Antiquities_, and by N. Pococke in his _India in Greece_. It is also well to remember that many of the derivations of the names of Indian deities, confidently proposed by Kuhn and Max Müller a few years ago, are no longer accepted. Tod, at any rate, published his views on Feudalism and Philology without any pretence of dogmatism.

One special question deserves examination—the constant references to the cult of Bāl-Siva, a form of the Sun god. A learned Indian scholar, Pandit Gaurishankar Ojha, who is now engaged on an annotated edition of _The Annals_ in Hindi, states that no temple or image dedicated to this god is known in Rājputāna. It is, of course, not unlikely that Siva, as a deity of fertility, should be associated with Sun worship, but there is no evidence of the cult on which Tod lays special stress. It is almost useless to speculate on the source of his error. It may be based on a reference in the _Āin-i-Akbari_[i.23] to a certain Bālnāth, Jogi, who occupied a cell in a place in the Sindh Sāgar Duāb of the Panjāb. At the same time, like many of the writers of his day, he may have had the Semitic Baal in his mind.

It was largely due to imperfect information received from his assistants that he shared with other writers of the time the confusion between Buddhism and Jainism, and supposed that the former religion was introduced into India from Central Asia. His elaborate attempt to extract history and a trustworthy scheme of chronology from the Purānas must be pronounced to be a failure. Recently a learned scholar, Mr. F. E. Pargiter, has shown how far an examination of these authorities can be conducted with any approach to probability.[i.24]

The questions which have been discussed do not, to any important extent, detract from the real value of the work. Even in those points which are most open to criticism, _The Annals_ possesses importance because it represents a phase in the study of Indian religions, ethnology, and sociology. No one can examine it without increasing pleasure and admiration for a writer who, immersed in arduous official work, was able to indulge his tastes for research. His was the first real attempt to investigate the beliefs of the peasantry as contrasted with the official Brahmanism, a study which in recent years has revolutionized the current conceptions of Hinduism. Even if his versions of the inscriptions which he collected fail to satisfy the requirements of more recent scholars, he deserves credit for rescuing from neglect and almost certain destruction epigraphical material for the use of his successors. The same may be said of the drawings of buildings, some of which have fallen into decay, or have been mutilated by their careless guardians. When he deals with facts which came under his personal observation, his accounts of beliefs, folk-lore, social life, customs, and manners possess permanent value.

He observed the Rājputs when they were in a stage of transition. Isolated by the inaccessibility of their country, they were the last guardians of Hindu beliefs, institutions, and manners against the rising tide of the Muhammadan invasions; without their protection much that is important for the study of the Hindus must have disappeared. To avoid anarchy and the ultimate destruction of these States, it was necessary for them to accept a closer union with the British as the paramount power. By this they lost something, but they gained much. The new connexion involved new duties and responsibilities in adapting their primitive system of government to modern requirements. Tod thus stood at the parting of the ways. With the introduction of the railway and the post-office, the disappearance of the caravan as a means of transport, the increase of trade, the growth of new wants and possibilities of development in association with the Empire, the period of Rājput isolation came to a close. To some it may be a matter of regret that the personal rule of the Chief over a people strongly influenced by what they term _swāmīdharma_, the reciprocal loyalty of subject to prince and of prince to people, should be replaced by a government of a more popular type. But this change was, in the nature of things, inevitable. As an example of this, a statement made by the Mahārāja of Bīkaner, when he was summoned to attend the Imperial Conference in 1917, may be quoted. “In my own territories we inaugurated some years ago the beginnings of a representative assembly. It now consists of elected, as well as nominated, non-official members, and their legislative powers follow the lines of those laid down for the Legislatures of British India in the 1909 reforms. In respect to the Budget they have the same powers as those conferred on the Supreme and Provincial Legislatures in British India by the Lansdowne reforms in force from 1893 to 1909. When announcing my intention of creating this representative body, I intimated that as the people showed their fitness they would be entrusted with more powers. Accordingly, at the end of the first triennial term, when the elections will take place, we are revising the rules of business in the direction of greater liberality and of removing unnecessary restrictions.” It remains to be seen how far this policy will prove to be successful.

It was a happy accident that before the period of transition had begun in earnest, such a competent and sympathetic observer should have been able to examine and record one of the most interesting surviving phases of the ancient Hindu polity.

A soldier and a sportsman, Tod learned to understand the romantic, adventurous side of the Rājput character, and he recorded with full appreciation the fine stories of manly valour, of the self-sacrifice of women, the tragedies of the sieges of Chitor, the heroism of Rānas Sanga and Partāb Singh, or of Durgādās. Many of these tales recall the age of medieval chivalry, and Tod is at his best in recording them. No one can read without admiration his account of the attack of the Saktāwats and Chondāwats on Untāla; of Sūja and the tiger; the tragedy of Krishna Kunwāri; of the queen of Ganor; of Sanjogta of Kanauj; of Gūga Chauhān and Alu Hāra. In many of these tales the Rājput displays the loyalty and valour, the punctilious regard for his personal honour which in the case of the Spanish grandee have passed into a proverb.

While the Rājput is courteous in his intercourse with those who are prepared to take him as he is, when he meets an English officer he resents any hint of patronage, he is jealous of any intrusion on the secluded folk behind the curtain, and he is often rather an acquaintance than a friend, inclined to shelter himself behind a dignified reserve, unwilling to open his mind to any one who does not accept his traditional attitude towards men of a different race and of a different faith. When he makes a ceremonial visit to a European officer, his conversation is often confined to conventional compliments, or chat about the weather and the state of the crops.

To remove these difficulties which obstruct friendly and confidential intercourse, the young officer in India may be advised to study the methods illustrated in this work. But he will do well to avoid Tod’s openly expressed partisanship. He owed the affection and respect bestowed upon him by prince and peasant, and even by the jealously guarded ladies of the zenanah, to his kindliness and sympathy, his readiness to converse freely with men of all classes, his patience in listening to grievances, even those which he had no power to redress, his impartiality as an arbitrator between the Rāna of Mewār and his people or between individuals or sects unfriendly to each other. He studied the national traditions and usages; he knew enough of religious beliefs and of social customs to save him from giving offence by word or deed; he could converse with the people in their own patois, and could give point to a remark by an apt quotation of a proverb or a scrap of an old ballad.

When, if ever, a new history of the Rājputs comes to be written, it must be largely based on Tod’s collections, supplemented by wider historical, antiquarian, and epigraphical research. The history of the last century cannot be compiled until the recent administration reports, now treated as confidential, and the muniment rooms of Calcutta and London are open to the student. But it is unlikely that, for the present at least, any writer will enjoy, as Tod did, access to the records and correspondence stored in the palaces of the Chiefs.

For the Rājput himself and for natives of India interested in the history of their country, the work will long retain its value. It preserves a record of tribal rights and privileges, of claims based on ancient tradition, of feuds and their settlement, of genealogies and family history which, but for Tod’s careful record, might have been forgotten or misinterpreted even by the Rājputs themselves. In the original English text which many Rājputs are now able to study they will find a picture of tribal society, now rapidly disappearing, drawn by a competent and friendly hand. Its interest will not be diminished by the fact that while the writer displays a hearty admiration for the Rājput character, he is not blind to its defects. At any rate, the Rājput will enjoy the satisfaction that his race has been selected to furnish the materials for the most comprehensive monograph ever compiled by a British officer describing one of the leading peoples of India.

Footnote i.1:

W. S. Seton Carr, _The Marquess Cornwallis_, 180, 189 f.

Footnote i.2:

_Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces_, ed. 1861, ii. 54.

Footnote i.3:

_Quarterly Review_, vol. xlviii. Oct.-Dec. 1832, pp. 38 f.

Footnote i.4:

_Decline and Fall_, ed. W. Smith, i. 375.

Footnote i.5:

V. A. Smith, _Early History of India_, 3rd ed. 408; Rhys Davids, _Buddhist India_, 60 f.

Footnote i.6:

_Primitive Culture_, 2nd ed. ii. 239.

Footnote i.7:

_Lectures on the Early History of the Kingship_, 231 ff.; _The Golden Bough_, 3rd ed.; _The Magic Art_, ii. 269 ff.

Footnote i.8:

_Early History of India_, 408.

Footnote i.9:

_Journal Royal Asiatic Society_, 1905, 1 ff. The tradition seems to have started earlier in Southern India, S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar, _Ancient India_, 1911, 390 ff.

Footnote i.10:

_Journal Asiatic Society Bengal_, 1909, 167 ff. The criticism by Pandit Mohanlal Vishnulal Pandia (_ibid._, 1912, 63 ff.) is extremely feeble.

Footnote i.11:

E. S. Hartland, _Primitive Paternity_, i. 258 ff.

Footnote i.12:

K. D. Erskine, _Gazetteer Western Rajput States and Bikaner Agency_, A. i. 177.

Footnote i.13:

_Bombay Gazetteer_, I. Part i. 385; _Bombay Census Report, 1911_, i. 279; Smith, _Early History_, 413.

Footnote i.14:

_Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces_, iv. 441.

Footnote i.15:

D. R. Bhandarkar, _Journal Bombay Branch Royal Asiatic Society_, 1916, Art. xii.

Footnote i.16:

_The Golden Bough_, 3rd ed.; _The Magic Art_, i. 44 ff.; _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, i. 42 f., 143 ff.

Footnote i.17:

Karsandas Mulji, _History of the Sect of the Mahārājas or Vallabhāchāryas_, London, 1865; _Report of the Mahārāj Libel Case_, Bombay, 1862; F. S. Growse, _Mathura_, 3rd ed. 283 f.

Footnote i.18:

V. A. Smith, _Akbar, The Great Mogul_, 162 ff.

Footnote i.19:

_History of Rome_, ed. 1866, iv. 209 ff.

Footnote i.20:

_Census Report, Rājputāna, 1911_, i. 132.

Footnote i.21:

_Some Records of Crime_, ii. 217 f.

Footnote i.22:

_View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages_, 12th ed. 1868, i. 186.

Footnote i.23:

ii. 315.

Footnote i.24:

“Ancient Indian Genealogies and Chronology,” “Earliest Indian Traditional History,” _Journal Royal Asiatic Society_, January 1910, April 1914.

PEDIGREE OF THE TOD FAMILY

James Tod, Merchant, Bo’ness. = Helen Moir. │ ┌────────────────────────┘ │ James Tod, Shipmaster, Bo’ness, _b._ 1672 = Elizabeth Monteath. │ ┌────────────────────────────┘ │ Henry Tod, _b._ 1717. = Janet Monteath. │ ┌─────────────────────┘ │ James Tod, Indigo Planter. = Mary Heatly. │ ┌────────────────────────┴───────┐ │ │ Suetonius Henry = Mary Macdonald, JAMES TOD = Julia Clutterbuck, of Tod, General. │ Sleat, Skye. │ a Dutch family that │ │ came to England in ┌──────┴──────────────┐ │ sixteenth century. │ │ │ Suetonius Macdonald Tod. Ewen Monteath Tod. │ │ ┌────────────────────┬────────────┬────────┘ │ │ │ Grant Heatly Tod- Edward H. M. Mary Augusta = Charles Harris Blunt, Heatly. ob.s.p. Tod. ob.s.p. Tod. │ Major-General, C.B., │ Bengal Horse Artillery. │ ┌──────────────────────────────────┼────────────────┐ │ │ │ Edward Walter = Sibell Lilian, Charles David Janet Heatly. Blunt-Mackenzie, │ Countess of Mackinnon. unm. unm. Lt.-Col., R.A. │ Cromartie. │ ┌────────────┴───────────┬──────────────────────┐ │ │ │ Roderick Grant Francis, Walter Blunt Mackenzie. Isobel. Viscount Tarbat.

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ROSE, H. A. A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province. 2 vols. Lahore, 1911-14.

RUSSELL, R. V. The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India. 4 vols. London, 1916.

SHERRING, C. R. Western Tibet and the British Borderland. London, 1906.

SHERRING, M. A. The Sacred City of the Hindus. London, 1868.

SKRINE, F. H. D.; ROSS, E. D. The Heart of Asia. London, 1899.

SLEEMAN, W. H. Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, ed. V. A. Smith. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1915.

SMITH, VINCENT A. EHI. The Early History of India from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasions of Alexander the Great. 3rd ed. Oxford, 1914.

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Asoka, The Buddhist Emperor of India. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1909.

Akbar, the Great Mogul. Oxford, 1917.

SMITH, W. R. The Religion of the Semites. 2nd ed. London, 1894.

SYAD MUHAMMAD LATIF. Agra Historical and Descriptive. Calcutta, 1896.

SYKES, Lieut.-Colonel P. M. The History of Persia. 2 vols. London, 1915.

Tarikh-i-Rashidi: A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, trans. N. E. Elias, E. D. Ross. London, 1898.

TAVERNIER, J. B. Travels in India, ed. V. Ball. 2 vols. London, 1889.

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TERRY, E. A Voyage to East India. London, 1777.

THOMAS, E. The Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi. London, 1871.

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WEBB, W. W. The Currencies of the Hindu States of Rajputana. Westminster, 1893.

WILBERFORCE-BELL, Captain H. The History of Kathiawar from the Earliest Times. London, 1916.

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AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE ORIGINAL EDITION

Much disappointment has been felt in Europe at the sterility of the historic muse of Hindustan. When Sir William Jones first began to explore the vast mines of Sanskrit literature, great hopes were entertained that the history of the world would acquire considerable accessions from this source. The sanguine expectations that were then formed have not been realized; and, as it usually happens, excitement has been succeeded by apathy and indifference. It is now generally regarded as an axiom, that India possesses no national history; to which we may oppose the remark of a French Orientalist, who ingeniously asks, whence Abu-l Fazl obtained the materials for his outlines of ancient Hindu history?[i.25] Mr. Wilson has, indeed, done much to obviate this prejudice, by his translation of the _Raja Tarangini_, or History of Kashmir,[i.26] which clearly demonstrates that regular historical composition was an art not unknown in Hindustan, and affords satisfactory ground for concluding that these productions were once less rare than at present, and that further exertion may bring more relics to light. Although the labours of Colebrooke, Wilkins, Wilson, and others of our own countrymen, emulated by many learned men in France [viii] and Germany,[i.27] have revealed to Europe some of the hidden lore of India; still it is not pretended that we have done much more than pass the threshold of Indian science; and we are consequently not competent to speak decisively of its extent or its character. Immense libraries, in various parts of India, are still intact, which have survived the devastations of the Islamite. The collections of Jaisalmer and Patan, for example, escaped the scrutiny of even the lynx-eyed Alau-d-din who conquered both these kingdoms, and who would have shown as little mercy to those literary treasures, as Omar displayed towards the Alexandrine library. Many other minor collections, consisting of thousands of volumes each, exist in Central and Western India, some of which are the private property of princes, and others belong to the Jain communities.[i.28]

If we consider the political changes and convulsions which have happened in Hindustan since Mahmud’s invasion, and the intolerant bigotry of many of his successors, we shall be able to account for the paucity of its national works on history, without being driven to the improbable conclusion, that the Hindus were ignorant of an art which has been cultivated in other countries from almost the earliest ages. Is it to be imagined that a nation so highly civilized as the Hindus, amongst whom the exact sciences flourished in perfection, by whom the fine arts [ix], architecture, sculpture, poetry, music, were not only cultivated, but taught and defined by the nicest and most elaborate rules, were totally unacquainted with the simple art of recording the events of their history, the characters of their princes, and the acts of their reigns? Where such traces of _mind_ exist, we can hardly believe that there was a want of competent recorders of events, which synchronical authorities tell us were worthy of commemoration. The cities of Hastinapur and Indraprastha, of Anhilwara and Somanatha, the triumphal columns of Delhi and Chitor, the shrines of Abu and Girnar, the cave-temples of Elephanta and Ellora, are so many attestations of the same fact; nor can we imagine that the age in which these works were erected was without an historian. Yet from the Mahabharata or Great War, to Alexander’s invasion, and from that grand event to the era of Mahmud of Ghazni, scarcely a paragraph of pure native Hindu history (except as before stated) has hitherto been revealed to the curiosity of Western scholars. In the heroic history of Prithiraj, the last of the Hindu sovereigns of Delhi, written by his bard Chand, we find notices which authorize the inference that works similar to his own were then extant, relating to the period between Mahmud and Shihabu-d-din (A.D. 1000-1193); but these have disappeared.

After eight centuries of galling subjection to conquerors totally ignorant of the classical language of the Hindus; after almost every capital city had been repeatedly stormed and sacked by barbarous, bigoted, and exasperated foes; it is too much to expect that the literature of the country should not have sustained, in common with other important interests, irretrievable losses. My own animadversions upon the defective condition of the annals of Rajwara have more than once been checked by a very just remark: "when our princes were in exile, driven from hold to hold, and compelled to dwell in the clefts of the mountains, often doubtful whether they would not be forced to [x] abandon the very meal preparing for them, was that a time to think of historical records?"

Those who expect from a people like the Hindus a species of composition of precisely the same character as the historical works of Greece and Rome, commit the very egregious error of overlooking the peculiarities which distinguish the natives of India from all other races, and which strongly discriminate their intellectual productions of every kind from those of the West. Their philosophy, their poetry, their architecture, are marked with traits of originality; and the same may be expected to pervade their history, which, like the arts enumerated, took a character from its intimate association with the religion of the people. It must be recollected, moreover, that until a more correct taste was imparted to the literature of England and of France, by the study of classical models, the chronicles of both these countries, and indeed of all the polished nations of Europe, were, at a much more recent date, as crude, as wild, and as barren as those of the early Rajputs.

In the absence of regular and legitimate historical records, there are, however, other native works (they may, indeed, be said to abound), which, in the hands of a skilful and patient investigator, would afford no despicable materials for the history of India. The first of these are the Puranas and genealogical legends of the princes, which, obscured as they are by mythological details, allegory, and improbable circumstances, contain many facts that serve as beacons to direct the research of the historian. What Hume remarks of the annals and annalists of the Saxon Heptarchy, may be applied with equal truth to those of the Rajput Seven States:[i.29] "they abound in names, but are extremely barren of events; or they are related so much without circumstances and causes, that the most profound and eloquent writer must despair [xi] of rendering them either instructive or entertaining to the reader. The monks" (for which we may read “Brahmans”), “who lived remote from public affairs, considered the civil transactions as subservient to the ecclesiastical, and were strongly affected with credulity, with the love of wonder, and with a propensity to imposture.”

The heroic poems of India constitute another resource for history. Bards may be regarded as the primitive historians of mankind. Before fiction began to engross the attention of poets, or rather, before the province of history was dignified by a class of writers who made it a distinct department of literature, the functions of the bard were doubtless employed in recording real events and in commemorating real personages. In India Calliope has been worshipped by the bards from the days of Vyasa, the contemporary of Job, to the time of Benidasa, the present chronicler of Mewar. The poets are the chief, though not the sole, historians of Western India; neither is there any deficiency of them, though they speak in a peculiar tongue, which requires to be translated into the sober language of probability. To compensate for their magniloquence and obscurity, their pen is free: the despotism of the Rajput princes does not extend to the poet’s lay, which flows unconfined except by the shackles of the _chand bhujanga_, or ‘serpentine stanza’; no slight restraint, it must be confessed, upon the freedom of the historic muse. On the other hand, there is a sort of compact or understanding between the bard and the prince, a barter of “solid pudding against empty praise,” whereby the fidelity of the poetic chronicle is somewhat impaired. This sale of “fame,” as the bards term it, by the court-laureates and historiographers of Rajasthan, will continue until there shall arise in the community a class sufficiently enlightened and independent, to look for no other recompense for literary labour than public distinction.

Still, however, these chroniclers dare utter truths, sometimes most [xii] unpalatable to their masters. When offended, or actuated by a virtuous indignation against immorality, they are fearless of consequences; and woe to the individual who provokes them! Many a resolution has sunk under the lash of their satire, which has condemned to eternal ridicule names that might otherwise have escaped notoriety. The _vish_, or poison of the bard, is more dreaded by the Rajput than the steel of the foe.

The absence of all mystery or reserve with regard to public affairs in the Rajput principalities, in which every individual takes an interest, from the noble to the porter at the city-gates, is of great advantage to the chronicler of events. When matters of moment in the disorganized state of the country rendered it imperative to observe secrecy, the Rana of Mewar, being applied to on the necessity of concealing them, rejoined as follows: “this is Chaumukha-raj;[i.30] Eklinga the sovereign, I his vicegerent; in him I trust, and I have no secrets from my children.” To this publicity may be partly ascribed the inefficiency of every general alliance against common foes; but it gives a kind of patriarchal character to the government, and inspires, if not loyalty and patriotism in their most exalted sense, feelings at least much akin to them.

A material drawback upon the value of these bardic histories is, that they are confined almost exclusively to the martial exploits of their heroes, and to the _rang-ran-bhum_, or ‘field of slaughter.’ Writing for the amusement of a warlike race, the authors disregard civil matters and the arts and pursuits of peaceful life; love and war are their favourite themes. Chand, the last of the great bards of India, tells us, indeed, in his preface, “that he will give rules for governing empires; the laws of grammar and composition; lessons in diplomacy, home and foreign, etc.”: and he fulfils his promise, by interspersing precepts on these points in various episodes throughout his work [xiii].

Again: the bard, although he is admitted to the knowledge of all the secret springs which direct each measure of the government, enters too deeply into the intrigues, as well as the levities, of the court, to be qualified to pronounce a sober judgment upon its acts.

Nevertheless, although open to all these objections, the works of the native bards afford many valuable data, in facts, incidents, religious opinions, and traits of manners; many of which, being carelessly introduced, are thence to be regarded as the least suspicious kind of historical evidence. In the heroic history of Prithiraj, by Chand, there occur many geographical as well as historical details, in the description of his sovereign’s wars, of which the bard was an eye-witness, having been his friend, his herald, his ambassador, and finally discharging the melancholy office of accessory to his death, that he might save him from dishonour. The poetical histories of Chand were collected by the great Amra Singh of Mewar, a patron of literature, as well as a warrior and a legislator.[i.31]

Another species of historical records is found in the accounts given by the Brahmans of the endowments of the temples, their dilapidation and repairs, which furnish occasions for the introduction of historical and chronological details. In the legends, respecting places of pilgrimage and religious resort, profane events are blended with superstitious rites and ordinances, local ceremonies and customs. The controversies of the Jains furnish, also, much historical information, especially with reference to Gujarat and Nahrwala, during the Chaulukya dynasty. From a close and attentive examination of the Jain records, which embody all that those ancient sectarians knew of science, many chasms in Hindu history might be filled up. The party-spirit of the rival sects of India was, doubtless, adverse to the purity of history; and the very ground upon which the Brahmans built their ascendency was the ignorance of the people. There appears to have been in India [xiv], as well as in Egypt in early times, a coalition between the hierarchy and the state, with the view of keeping the mass of the nation in darkness and subjugation.

These different records, works of a mixed historical and geographical character which I know to exist; _raesas_ or poetical legends of princes, which are common; local Puranas, religious comments, and traditionary couplets;[i.32] with authorities of a less dubious character, namely, inscriptions ‘cut on the rock,’ coins, copper-plate grants, containing charters of immunities, and expressing many singular features of civil government, constitute, as I have already observed, no despicable materials for the historian, who would, moreover, be assisted by the synchronisms which are capable of being established with ancient Pagan and later Muhammadan writers.

From the earliest period of my official connexion with this interesting country, I applied myself to collect and explore its early historical records, with a view of throwing some light upon a people scarcely yet known in Europe and whose political connexion with England appeared to me to be capable of undergoing a material change, with benefit to both parties. It would be wearisome to the reader to be minutely informed of the process I adopted, to collect the scattered relics of Rajput history into the form and substance in which he now sees them. I began with the sacred genealogy from the Puranas; examined the Mahabharata, and the poems of Chand (a complete chronicle of his times); the voluminous historical poems of Jaisalmer, Marwar, and Mewar;[i.33] the histories of the Khichis, and those of the Hara princes [xv] of Kotah and Bundi, etc., by their respective bards. A portion of the materials compiled by Jai Singh of Amber or Jaipur (one of the greatest patrons of science amongst the modern Hindu princes), to illustrate the history of his race, fell into my hands. I have reason to believe that there existed more copious materials, which his profligate descendant, the late prince, in his division of the empire with a prostitute, may have disposed of on the partition of the library of the State, which was the finest collection in Rajasthan. Like some of the renowned princes of Timur’s dynasty, Jai Singh kept a diary, termed _Kalpadruma_, in which he noted every event: a work written by such a man and at such an interesting juncture, would be a valuable acquisition to history. From the Datia prince I obtained a transcript of the journal of his ancestor, who served with such _éclat_ amongst the great feudatories of Aurangzeb’s army, and from which Scott made many extracts in his history of the Deccan.

For a period of ten years I was employed, with the aid of a learned Jain, in ransacking every work which could contribute any facts or incidents to the history of the Rajputs, or diffuse any light upon their manners and character. Extracts and versions of all such passages were made by my Jain assistant into the more familiar dialects (which are formed from the Sanskrit) of these tribes, in whose language my long residence amongst them enabled me to converse with facility. At much expense, and during many wearisome hours, to support which required no ordinary degree of enthusiasm, I endeavoured to possess myself not merely of their history, but of their religious notions, their familiar opinions, and their characteristic manners, by associating with their chiefs and bardic chroniclers, and by listening to their traditionary tales and allegorical poems. I might ultimately, as the circle of my [xvi] inquiries enlarged, have materially augmented my knowledge of these subjects; but ill-health compelled me to relinquish this pleasing though toilsome pursuit, and forced me to revisit my native land just as I had obtained permission to look across the threshold of the Hindu Minerva; whence, however, I brought some relics, the examination of which I now consign to other hands. The large collection of ancient Sanskrit and Bhakha MSS., which I conveyed to England, have been presented to the Royal Asiatic Society, in whose library they are deposited. The contents of many, still unexamined, may throw additional light on the history of ancient India. I claim only the merit of having brought them to the knowledge of European scholars; but I may hope that this will furnish a stimulus to others to make similar exertions.

The little exact knowledge that Europe has hitherto acquired of the Rajput States, has probably originated a false idea of the comparative importance of this portion of Hindustan. The splendour of the Rajput courts, however, at an early period of the history of that country, making every allowance for the exaggeration of the bards, must have been great. Northern India was rich from the earliest times; that portion of it, situated on either side the Indus, formed the richest satrapy of Darius. It has abounded in the more striking events which constitute the materials for history; there is not a petty State in Rajasthan that has not had its Thermopylae, and scarcely a city that has not produced its Leonidas. But the mantle of ages has shrouded from view what the magic pen of the historian might have consecrated to endless admiration: Somnath might have rivalled Delphos; the spoils of Hind might have vied with the wealth of the Libyan king; and compared with the array of the Pandus, the army of Xerxes would have dwindled into insignificance. But the Hindus either never had, or have unfortunately lost, their Herodotus and Xenophon.

If “the moral effect of history depend on the sympathy it excites” [xvii], the annals of these States possess commanding interest. The struggles of a brave people for independence during a series of ages, sacrificing whatever was dear to them for the maintenance of the religion of their forefathers, and sturdily defending to death, and in spite of every temptation, their rights and national liberty, form a picture which it is difficult to contemplate without emotion. Could I impart to the reader but a small portion of the enthusiastic delight with which I have listened to the tales of times that are past, amid scenes where their events occurred, I should not despair of triumphing over the apathy which dooms to neglect almost every effort to enlighten my native country on the subject of India; nor should I apprehend any ill effect from the sound of names, which, musical and expressive as they are to a Hindu, are dissonant and unmeaning to a European ear: for it should be remembered that almost every Eastern name is significant of some quality, personal or mental. Seated amidst the ruins of ancient cities, I have listened to the traditions respecting their fall; or have heard the exploits of their illustrious defenders related by their descendants near the altars erected to their memory. I have, whilst in the train of the southern Goths (the Mahrattas), as they carried desolation over the land, encamped on or traversed many a field of battle, of civil strife or foreign aggression, to read in the rude memorials on the tumuli of the slain their names and history. Such anecdotes and records afford data of history as well as of manners. Even the couplet recording the erection of a ‘column of victory,’ or of a temple or its repairs, contributes something to our stock of knowledge of the past.

As far as regards the antiquity of the dynasties now ruling in Central and Western India, there are but two the origin of which is not perfectly within the limits of historical probability; the rest having owed their present establishments to the progress of the Muslim arms, their annals are confirmed by those of their conquerors. All the existing [xviii] families, indeed, have attained their present settlements subsequently to the Muhammadan invasions, except Mewar, Jaisalmer, and some smaller principalities in the desert; whilst others of the first magnitude, such as the Pramara and Solanki, who ruled at Dhar and Anhilwara, have for centuries ceased to exist.

I have been so hardy as to affirm and endeavour to prove the common origin of the martial tribes of Rajasthan and those of ancient Europe. I have expatiated at some length upon the evidence in favour of the existence of a feudal system in India, similar to that which prevailed in the early ages on the European continent, and of which relics still remain in the laws of our own nation. Hypotheses of this kind are, I am aware, viewed with suspicion, and sometimes assailed with ridicule. With regard to the notions which I have developed on these questions, and the frequent allusions to them in the pages of this volume, I entertain no obstinate prepossessions or prejudices in their favour. The world is too enlightened at the present day to be in danger of being misled by any hypothetical writer, let him be ever so skilful; but the probability is, that we have been induced, by the multitude of false theories which time has exposed, to fall into the opposite error, and that we have become too sceptical with regard to the common origin of the people of the east and west. However, I submit my proofs to the candid judgment of the world; the analogies, if not conclusive on the questions, are still sufficiently curious and remarkable to repay the trouble of perusal and to provoke further investigation; and they may, it is hoped, vindicate the author for endeavouring to elucidate the subject, “by steering through the dark channels of antiquity by the feeble lights of forgotten chronicles and imperfect records.”

I am conscious that there is much in this work which demands the indulgence of the public; and I trust it will not be necessary for me to assign a more powerful argument in plea than that which I have already [xix] adverted to, namely, the state of my health, which has rendered it a matter of considerable difficulty, indeed I may say of risk, to bring my bulky materials even into their present imperfect form. I should observe, that it never was my intention to treat the subject in the severe style of history, which would have excluded many details useful to the politician as well as to the curious student. I offer this work as a copious collection of materials for the future historian; and am far less concerned at the idea of giving too much, than at the apprehension of suppressing what might possibly be useful.

I cannot close these remarks without expressing my obligations to my friend and kinsman, Major Waugh, to the genius of whose pencil the world is indebted for the preservation and transmission of the splendid monuments of art which adorn this work.

Footnote i.25:

M. Abel Rémusat, in his _Mélanges Asiatiques_, makes many apposite and forcible remarks on this subject, which, without intention, convey a just reproof to the lukewarmness of our countrymen. The institution of the Royal Asiatic Society, especially that branch of it devoted to Oriental translations, may yet redeem this reproach.

Footnote i.26:

_Asiatic Researches_, vol. xv. [The _Rājatarangini_ of Kalhana has been translated by M. A. Stein, 2 vols., London, 1910.]

Footnote i.27:

When the genius and erudition of such men as Schlegel are added to the zeal which characterizes that celebrated writer, what revelations may we not yet expect from the cultivation of oriental literature?

Footnote i.28:

Some copies of these Jain MSS. from Jaisalmer, which were written from five to eight centuries back, I presented to the Royal Asiatic Society. Of the vast numbers of these MS. books in the libraries of Patan and Jaisalmer, many are of the most remote antiquity, and in a character no longer understood by their possessors, or only by the supreme pontiff and his initiated librarians. There is one volume held so sacred for its magical contents, that it is suspended by a chain in the temple of Chintaman, at the last-named capital in the desert, and is only taken down to have its covering renewed, or at the inauguration of a pontiff. Tradition assigns its authorship to Somaditya Suru Acharya, a pontiff of past days, before the Islamite had crossed the waters of the Indus, and whose diocese extended far beyond that stream. His magic mantle is also here preserved, and used on every new installation. The character is, doubtless, the nail-headed Pali; and could we introduce the ingenious, indefatigable, and modest Mons. E. Burnouf, with his able coadjutor Dr. Lassen, into the temple, we might learn something of this Sibylline volume, without their incurring the risk of loss of sight, which befel the last individual, a female Yati of the Jains, who sacrilegiously endeavoured to acquire its contents. [For the temple library at Jaisalmer see _IA_, iv. 81 ff; for those at Udaipur, _ibid._ xiii. 31. J. Burgess visited the Pātan library, described by the Author (_WI_, 232 ff.), and found a collection of palm-leaf MSS., carefully wrapped in cloth and deposited in large chests (_BG_, vii. 598).]

Footnote i.29:

Mewar, Marwar, Amber, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Kotah, and Bundi.

Footnote i.30:

Government of ‘_four mouths_,’ alluding to the quadriform image of the tutelary divinity.

Footnote i.31:

[Only portions of the _Chand-rāesa_ or _Prithīrāj Rāesa_ have been translated (Smith, _EHI_, 387, note; _IA_, i. 269 ff., iii. 17 ff., xxxii. 167 f).]

Footnote i.32:

Some of these preserve the names of princes who invaded India between the time of Mahmud of Ghazni and Shihabu-d-dīn, who are not mentioned by Ferishta, the Muhammadan historian. The invasion of Ajmer and the capture of Bayana, the seat of the Yadu princes, were made known to us by this means.

Footnote i.33:

Of Marwar, there were the _Vijaya Vilas_, the _Surya Prakas_, and _Khyat_, or legends, besides detached fragments of reigns. Of Mewar, there was the _Khuman Raesa_, a modern work formed from old materials which are lost, and commencing with the attack of Chitor by Mahmud, supposed to be the son of Kasim of Sind, in the very earliest ages of Muhammadanism: also the _Jagat Vilas_, the _Raj-prakas_, and the _Jaya Vilas_, all poems composed in the reigns of the princes whose names they bear, but generally introducing succinctly the early parts of history. Besides these, there were fragments of the Jaipur family, from their archives; and the _Man Charitra_, or history of Raja Man.

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND VOLUME OF THE ORIGINAL EDITION

In placing before the public the concluding volume of the _Annals of Rajputana_ I have fulfilled what I considered to be a sacred obligation to the races amongst whom I have passed the better portion of my life; and although no man can more highly appreciate public approbation, I am far less eager to court that approbation than to awaken a sympathy for the objects of my work, the interesting people of Rajputana.

I need add nothing to what was urged in the Introduction to the First Volume on the subject of Indian History; and trust that, however slight the analogy between the chronicles of the Hindus and those of Europe, as historical works, they will serve to banish the reproach, which India has so long laboured under, of possessing no records of past events: my only fear now is, that they may be thought redundant.

I think I may confidently affirm, that whoever, without being alarmed at their bulk, has the patience attentively to peruse these Annals, cannot fail to become well acquainted with all the peculiar features of Hindu society, and will be enabled to trace the foundation and progress of each State in Rajputana, as well as to form a just notion of the character of a people, upon whom, at a future period, our existence in India may depend.

Whatever novelty the inquirer into the origin of nations may find in these [viii] pages, I am ambitious to claim for them a higher title than a mass of mere archaeological data. To see humanity under every aspect, and to observe the influence of different creeds upon man in his social capacity, must ever be one of the highest sources of mental enjoyment; and I may hope that the personal qualities herein delineated, will allow the labourer in this vast field of philosophy to enlarge his sphere of acquaintance with human varieties. In the present circumstances of our alliance with these States, every trait of national character, and even every traditional incident, which, by leading us to understand and respect their peculiarities, may enable us to secure their friendship and esteem, become of infinite importance. The more we study their history, the better shall we comprehend the causes of their international quarrels, the origin of their tributary engagements, the secret principles of their mutual repulsion, and the sources of their strength and their weakness as an aggregate body: without which knowledge it is impossible we can arbitrate with justice in their national disputes; and, as respects ourselves, we may convert a means of defence into a source of bitter hostility.

It has been my aim to diversify as much as possible the details of this volume. In the Annals of Marwar I have traced the conquest and peopling of an immense region by a handful of strangers; and have dwelt, perhaps, with tedious minuteness on the long reign of Raja Ajit Singh and the Thirty Years’ War; to show what the energy of one of these petty States, impelled by a sense of oppression, effected against the colossal power of its enemies. It is a portion of their history which should be deeply studied by those who have succeeded to the paramount power; for Aurangzeb had less reason to distrust the stability of his dominion than we have: yet what is now the house of Timur? The resources of Marwar were reduced to as low an ebb at the close of Aurangzeb’s reign, as they are at the present time; yet did that [ix] State surmount all its difficulties, and bring armies into the field that annihilated the forces of the empire. Let us not, then, mistake the supineness engendered by long oppression, for want of feeling, nor mete out to these high-spirited people the same measure of contumely, with which we have treated the subjects of our earlier conquests.

The Annals of the Bhattis may be considered as the link connecting the tribes of India Proper with the ancient races west of the Indus, or Indo-Scythia; and although they will but slightly interest the general reader, the antiquary may find in them many new topics for investigation, as well as in the Sketch of the Desert, which has preserved the relics of names that once promised immortality.

The patriarchal simplicity of the Jat communities, upon whose ruins the State of Bikaner was founded, affords a picture, however imperfect, of petty republics—a form of government little known to eastern despotism, and proving the tenacity of the ancient Gete’s attachment to liberty.

Amber, and its scion Shaikhavati, possess a still greater interest from their contiguity to our frontier. A multitude of singular privileges is attached to the Shaikhavati federation, which it behoves the paramount power thoroughly to understand, lest it should be led by false views to pursue a policy detrimental to them as well as to ourselves. To this extensive community belong the Larkhanis, so utterly unknown to us, that a recent internal tumult of that tribe was at first mistaken for an irruption of our old enemies, the Pindaris.

Haraoti may claim our regard from the high bearing of its gallant race, the Haras; and the singular character of the individual with whose biography its history closes, and which cannot fail to impart juster notions of the genius of Asiatics [x].

So much for the matter of this volume—with regard to the manner, as the Rajputs abhor all pleas _ad misericordiam_, so likewise does their annalist, who begs to repeat, in order to deprecate a standard of criticism inapplicable to this performance, that it professes _not_ to be constructed on exact historical principles: _Non historia, sed particulae historiae_.

In conclusion, I adopt the peroration of the ingenuous, pious, and liberal Abu-l Fazl, when completing his History of the Provinces of India; “Praise be unto God, that by the assistance of his Divine Grace, I have completed the History of the Rajputs. The account cost me a great deal of trouble in collecting, and I found such difficulty in ascertaining dates, and in reconciling the contradictions in the several histories of the Princes of Rajputana, that I had nearly resolved to relinquish the task altogether: but who can resist the decrees of Fate? I trust that those, who have been able to obtain better information, will not dwell upon my errors; but that upon the whole I may meet with approbation.”[i.34]

YORK PLACE, PORTMAN SQUARE, _March 10, 1832_.

Footnote i.34:

[_Āīn_, ii. 418.]

ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES OF RAJASTHAN