James Tod Quotes

Often was Partap heard to exclaim, “Had Udai Singh never been, or none intervened between him and Sanga Rana, no Turk should ever have given laws to Rajasthan.” Hindu society had assumed a new form within the century preceding: the wrecks of dominion from the Jumna and Ganges had been silently growing into importance; and Amber and Marwar had attained such power, that the latter single-handed coped with the imperial Sher Shah; while numerous minor chieftainships were attaining shape and strength on both sides the Chambal. A prince of commanding genius alone was wanting, to snatch the sceptre of dominion from the Islamite. Such a leader they found in Sanga, who possessed every quality which extorts spontaneous obedience, and the superiority of whose birth, as well as dignity, were admitted without cavil, from the Himalaya to Rameswaram.

But the magnitude of the peril confirmed the fortitude of Partap, who vowed, in the words of the bard, “to make his mother’s milk resplendent”; and he amply redeemed his pledge. Single-handed, for a quarter of a century did he withstand the combined efforts of the empire; at one time carrying destruction into the plains, at another flying from rock to rock, feeding his family from the fruits of his native hills, and rearing the nursling hero Amra, amidst savage beasts and scarce less savage men, a fit heir to his prowess and revenge. The bare idea that “the son of Bappa Rawal should bow the head to mortal man,” was insupportable; and he spurned every overture which had submission for its basis, or the degradation of uniting his family by marriage with the Tatar, though lord of countless multitudes. The brilliant acts he achieved during that period live in every valley; they are enshrined in the heart of every true Rajput, and many are recorded in the annals of the conquerors. To recount them all, or relate the hardships he sustained, would be to pen what they would pronounce a romance who had not traversed the country where tradition is yet eloquent with his exploits, or conversed with the descendants of his chiefs, who cherish a recollection of the deeds of their forefathers, and melt, as they recite them, into manly tears. Partap was nobly supported; and though wealth and fortune tempted the fidelity of his chiefs, not one was found base enough to abandon him.

There is a sanctity in the very name of Chitor, which from the earliest times secured her defenders; and now, when threatened again by ‘the barbarian,’ such the inexplicable character of the Rajput, we find the heir of Surajmall abandoning his new capital of Deolia, to pour out the few drops which yet circulated in his veins in defence of the abode of his fathers.

While the battle was still doubtful, the Tuar traitor who led the van (harawal) went over to Babur, and Sanga was obliged to retreat from the field, which in the onset promised a glorious victory, himself severely wounded and the choicest of his chieftains slain: Rawal Udai Singh of Dungarpur, with two hundred of his clan; Ratna of Salumbar, with three hundred of his Chondawat kin; Raemall Rathor, son of the prince of Marwar, with the brave Mertia leaders Khetsi and Ratna; Ramdas the Sonigira Rao; Uja the Jhala; Gokuldas Pramara; Manikchand and Chandrbhan, Chauhan chiefs of the first rank in Mewar; besides a host of inferior names. Hasan Khan of Mewat, and a son of the last Lodi king of Delhi, who coalesced with Sanga, were amongst the killed. Triumphal pyramids were raised of the heads of the slain, and on a hillock which overlooked the field of battle a tower of skulls was erected; and the conqueror assumed the title of Ghazi, which has ever since been retained by his descendants.

It is scarcely to be credited that a statesman like Akbar should have hazarded his popularity or his power, by the introduction of a custom alike appertaining to the Celtic races of Europe as to these the Goths of Asia; and that he should seek to degrade those whom the chances of war had made his vassals, by conduct so nefarious and repugnant to the keenly cherished feelings of the Rajput. Yet there is not a shadow of doubt that many of the noblest of the race were dishonoured on the Nauroza; and the chivalrous Prithiraj was only preserved from being of the number by the high courage and virtue of his wife, a princess of Mewar, and daughter of the founder of the Saktawats. On one of these celebrations of the Khushroz, the monarch of the Moguls was struck with the beauty of the daughter of Mewar, and he singled her out from amidst the united fair of Hind as the object of his passion. It is not improbable that an ungenerous feeling united with that already impure, to despoil the Sesodias of their honour, through a princess of their house under the protection of the sovereign. On retiring from the fair, she found herself entangled amidst the labyrinth of apartments by which egress was purposely ordained, when Akbar stood before her: but instead of acquiescence, she drew a poniard from her corset, and held it to his breast, dictating, and making him repeat, the oath of renunciation of the infamy to all her race. The anecdote is accompanied in the original with many dramatic circumstances. The guardian goddess of Mewar, the terrific Mata, appears on her tiger in the subterranean passage of this palace of pollution, to strengthen her mind by a solemn denunciation , and her hand with a weapon to protect her honour. Rae Singh, the elder brother of the princely bard, had not been so fortunate; his wife wanted either courage or virtue to withstand the regal tempter, and she returned to their dwelling in the desert despoiled of her chastity, but loaded with jewels; or, as Prithiraj expresses it: “She returned to her abode, tramping to the tinkling sound of the ornaments of gold and gems on her person; but where, my brother, is the moustache on thy lip?”

The most antique temples are to be seen in these spots—within the dark gorge of the mountain, or on its rugged summit—in the depths of the forest, and at the sources of streams, where sites of seclusion, beauty, and sublimity alternately exalt the mind’s devotion. In these regions the creative power appears to have been the earliest, and at one time the sole, object of adoration, whose symbols, the serpent-wreathed phallus (lingam), and its companion, the bull, were held sacred even by the ‘children of the forest.’ In these silent retreats Mahadeva continued to rule triumphant, and the most brilliant festivities of Udaipur were those where his rites are celebrated in the nine days sacred to him, when the Jains and Vaishnavas mix with the most zealous of his votaries; but the strange gods from the plains of the Yamuna and Ganges have withdrawn a portion of the zeal of the Guhilots from their patron divinity Eklinga, whose diwan, or viceregent, is the Rana. The temple of Eklinga, situated in one of the narrow defiles leading to the capital, is an immense structure, though more sumptuous than elegant. It is built entirely of white marble, most elaborately carved and embellished; but lying in the route of a bigoted foe, it has undergone many dilapidations. The brazen bull, placed under his own dome, facing the sanctuary of the phallus, is nearly of the natural size, in a recumbent posture. It is cast (hollow) of good shape, highly polished and without flaw, except where the hammer of the Tatar had opened a passage in the hollow flank in search of treasure.

Mahratta cunning, engrafted on Muhammadan intolerance, had greatly obscured these institutions. The nation itself was passing rapidly away: the remnant which was left had become a matter of calculation, and their records and their laws partook of this general decay. The nation may recover; the physical frame may be renewed; but the morale of the society must be recast. In this chaos a casual observer sees nothing to attract notice; the theory of government appears, without any of the dignity which now marks our regular system. Whatever does exist is attributed to fortuitous causes—to nothing systematic: no fixed principle is discerned, and none is admitted; it is deemed a mechanism without a plan. This opinion is hasty. Attention to distinctions, though often merely nominal , will aid us in discovering the outlines of a picture which must at some period have been more finished; when real power, unrestrained by foreign influence, upheld a system, the plan of which was original. It is in these remote regions, so little known to the Western world, and where original manners lie hidden under those of the conquerors, that we may search for the germs of the constitutions of European States. A contempt for all that is Asiatic too often marks our countrymen in the East: though at one period on record the taunt might have been reversed.

The lieutenants of Shihābu-d-din disturbed the close of Kumarapal’s reign; and his successor, Balo Muldeo, closed this dynasty in S. 1284 (A.D. 1228), when a new dynasty, called the Vaghela (descendants of Siddharaja) under Bīsaldeo, succeeded. The dilapidations from religious persecution were repaired; Somnath, renowned as Delphos of old, rose from its ruins, and the kingdom of the Balakaraes was attaining its pristine magnificence, when, under the fourth prince, Karandeva, the angel of destruction appeared in the shape of Alau-d-din, and the kingdom of Anhilwara was annihilated. The lieutenants of the Tatar despot of Delhi let loose the spirit of intolerance and avarice on the rich cities and fertile plains of Gujarat and Saurashtra. In contempt of their faith, the altar of an Islamite Darvesh was placed in contact with the shrine of Adinath, on the most accessible of their sacred mounts: the statues of Buddha [the Jain Tirthankaras] were thrown down, and the books containing the mysteries of their faith suffered the same fate as the Alexandrian library. The walls of Anhilwara were demolished; its foundations excavated, and again filled up with the fragments of their ancient temples.

To these fifty-six reigns I should be willing to allow the average of twenty years, which would give 1120 from Rama to Sumitra, who preceded by a short period Vikramaditya; and as 1100 have been already calculated to have preceded the era of Rama and Yudhishthira, the inference is, that 2200 years elapsed from Ikshwaku, the founder of the Solar line, to Sumitra.

Thus, taking an average of the whole, we may consider fifty-five princes to be the number of descents from Budha to Krishna and Yudhishthira; and, admitting an average of twenty years for each reign, a period of eleven hundred years; which being added to a like period calculated from thence to Vikramaditya, who reigned fifty-six years before Christ, I venture to place the establishment in India Proper of these two grand races, distinctively called those of Surya and Chandra, at about 2256 years before the Christian era; at which period, though somewhat later, the Egyptian, Chinese, and Assyrian monarchies are generally stated to have been established, and about a century and a half after that great event, the Flood.

Britain has become heir to the monuments of Indraprastha raised by the descendants of Budha and Ila; to the iron pillar of the Pandavas, "whose pedestal is fixed in hell"; to the columns reared to victory, inscribed with characters yet unknown; to the massive ruins of its ancient continuous cities, encompassing a space still larger than the largest city in the world, whose mouldering domes and sites of fortresses, the very names of which are lost, present a noble field for speculation on the ephemeral nature of power and glory. What monument would Britain bequeath to distant posterity of her succession to this dominion? Not one: except it be that of a still less perishable nature, the monument of national benefit. Much is in our power: much has been given, and posterity will demand the result.

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.

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.

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.

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?"