Mewar 10: Succession of Kumbha - Revision history

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This page is an extract from <br/>
ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES <br/>
OF <br/>
'''RAJASTHAN '''<br/>

OR THE CENTRAL AND WESTERN <br/>
RAJPUT STATES OF INDIA <br/>

By <br/>
LIEUT.-COL. JAMES TOD <br/>
Late Political Agent to the Western Rajput States <br/>

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by <br/>
WILLIAM CROOKE, CIE. <br/>
Hon. D.Sc. Oxon., B.A., F.R.A.l. <br/>
Late of the Indian Civil Service <br/>

In Three Volumes <br/>
VOL. IV: ANNALS OF MEWAR<br/>
[The Annals were completed in 1829]<br/>

HUMPHREY MILFORD <br/>
Oxford University Press <br/>
London Edinburgh Glasgow New York <br/>
Toronto Melbourne Bombay <br/>
1920 [The edition scanned] <br/>
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Note: This article is likely to contain several spelling mistakes that occurred during scanning. If these errors are reported as messages to the Facebook page, [http://www.facebook.com/Indpaedia Indpaedia.com] your help will be gratefully acknowledged.

=Mewar 10: Succession of Kumbha=
==Rana Kumbha, a.d. 1433-68==

Kumbha succeeded his father
in S. 1475 (a.d. 1419) ; 1 nor did any symptom of dissatisfaction

[The dates given in the margin are based on recently found inscriptions
(Har Bilas Sarda, Maharana Kumbha : Sovereign, Soldier, Scholar, Ajmer,
1917, p. 2.]
appear to usher in his reign, which was one of great success
amidst no common difficulties. The bardic historians 1 do as
much honour to the Marwar prince, who had made common
cause with their sovereign in revenging the death of his father,
as if it had involved the security of his crown ; but this was a
precautionary measure of the prince, who was induced thus to
act from several motives, and, above all, in accordance with
usage, which stigmatizes the refusal of aid when demanded :
besides ' Kumbha was the nephew of Marwar.'

It has rarely occurred in any country to have possessed suc
cessively so many energetic princes as ruled Mewar through
several centuries. She was now in the middle path of her glory,
and enjoying the legitimate triumph of seeing the foes of her
religion captives on the rock of her power. A century had
elapsed since the bigot Ala had wreaked his vengeance on the
different monuments of art. Chitor had recovered the sack, and
new defenders had sprung up in the place [287] of those who had
fallen in their ' saffron robes,' a sacrifice for her preservation.
All that was wanting to augment her resources against the
storms which were collecting on the brows of Caucasus and the
shores of the Oxus, and were destined to burst on the head of his
grandson Sanga, was effected by Kumbha ; who with Hamir's
energy, Lakha's taste for the arts, and a genius comprehensive
as either and more fortunate, succeeded in all his undertakings,
and once more raised the ' crimson banner ' of Mewar upon the
banks of the Ghaggar, the scene of Samarsi's defeat. Iet us
contrast the patriarchal Hindu governments of this period with
the despotism of the Tatar invader.

From the age of Shihabu-d-din, the conqueror of India, and
his contemporary Samarsi, to the time we have now reached,
two entire dynasties, numbering twenty-four emperors and one
empress, through assassination, rebellion, and dethronement,
had followed in rapid succession, yielding a result of only nine
years to a reign. Of Mewar, though several fell in defending
their altars at home or their religion abroad, eleven princes
suffice to fill the same period.

It was towards the close of the Khilji dynasty that the satraps
1 The Raj Ratana, by Ranchhor Bhat, says : " The Mandor Rao was
pardhan, or premier to Mokal, and conquered Nawa and Didwana for
Mewar."
of Delhi shook off its authority and established subordinate
kingdoms : Bijapur and Golkonda in the Deccan ; Malwa,
Gujarat, Jaunpur in the east ; and even Kalpi had its king.
Malwa and Gujarat had attained considerable power when
Kumbha ascended the throne. In the midst of his prosperity
these two States formed a league against him, and in S. 1496
(a.d. 1440) both kings, at the head of powerful armies, invaded
Mewar. Kumbha met them on the plains of Malwa bordering
on his own State, and at the head of one hundred thousand horse
and foot and fourteen hundred elephants, gave them an entire
defeat, carrying captive to Chitor Mahmud the Khilji sovereign
of Malwa.

Abu-1 Fazl relates this victory, and dilates on Kumbha's
greatness of soul in setting his enemy at libeii;y, not only without
ransom but with gifts.1 Such is the character of the Hindu : a
mixture of arrogance, political blindness, pride, and generosity.
To spare a prostrate foe is the creed of the Hindu cavalier, and
he carries all such maxims to excess. The annals, however, state
that Mahmud was confined six months in Chitor ; and that the
trophies of conquest were retained we have evidence from Babur,
who mentions receiving from the son of his opponent, Sanga, the
crown of the Malwa king.

==The Tower of Victory==

But there is a more durable [288]
monument than this written record of victory : the triumphal
pillar in Chitor, whose inscriptions detail the event, " when,
shaking the earth, the lords of Gujarkhand and Malwa, with
armies overwhelming as the ocean, invaded Medpat." Eleven
years after this event Kumbha laid the foundations of this
column, which was completed in ten more : a period apparently
too short to place " this ringlet on the brow of Chitor, which
makes her look down upon Meru with derision." We will leave
it, with the aspiration that it may long continue a monument of
the fortune of its founders.2

It would appear that the Malwa king afterwards united his
1 [It is the generosity of Rana Sanga to Muzaffar Shah of which Abn-1
Fazl speaks (Ain, ii. 221).]
2 [The Musalman historians give a different account. Ferishta says that
Mahmud stormed the lower part of Chitor, and that the Rana fled (iv. 209).
At any rate, Mahunid erected a tower of victory at Mandu (IGI, xvii. 173).
The result was probably indecisive. For Kumbha's pillar see Fergusson,
Hist. Indian Architecture, ii. 59 ; Smith, HFA. 202 f.]
arms with Kumbha, as, in a victory gained over the imperial
forces at Jhunjhumi, when ' he planted his standard in Hissar,'
the Malwa troops were combined with those of Mewar. The
imperial power had at this period greatly declined : the KJiutba
was read in the mosques in the name of Timur, and the Malwa
king had defeated, single-handed, the last Ghorian sultan of
Delhi.

==The Fortresses of Mewar==
Of eighty-four fortresses for the
defence of Mewar, thirty-two were erected by Kumbha. Inferior
only to Chitor is that stupendous work called after him Kum
bhalmer,1 ' the hill of Kumbha,' from its natural position, and
the works he raised, impregnable to a native army. These works
were on the site of a more ancient fortress, of which the moun
taineers long held possession. Tradition ascribes it to Samprati
Raja, a Jain prince in the second century, and a descendant of
Chandragupta ; 2 and the ancient Jain temples appear to confirm
the tradition. When Kumbha captured Nagor he brought away
the gates, with the statue of the god Hanuman, who gives his
name to the gate which he still guards. He also erected a citadel
on a peak of Abu, within the fortress of the ancient Pramara,
where he often resided. Its magazine and alarm-tower still
bear Kumbha's name ; and in a rude temple the bronze effigies
of Kumbha and his father still receive divine honours.3 Centuries
have passed since the princes of Mewar had influence here, but
the incident marks the vivid remembrance of their condition.
He fortified the passes between the western frontier and Abu,
and erected the fort Vasanti near the present Sirohi, and that of
Machin, to defend the Shero Nala and Deogarh against the Mers
of Aravalli. He re-established Ahor and other smaller [289]
forts to overawe the Bhumia 4 Bhil of Jharol and Panarwa, and
defined the boundaries of Marwar and Mewar.

==Temples==

Besides these monuments of his genius, two conse
crated to religion have survived : that of Kumbha Sham, on
Abu, which, though worthy to attract notice elsewhere, is here
eclipsed by a crowd of more interesting objects ; the other, one
1 Pronounced Kumalmer.
2 [Grandson_of Asoka (Smith, EHI, 192 f.).]
3 [For the Abu temples see Tod, Western India, 75 £f. ; Erskine iii. A.
295.]
5 A powerful phrase, indicating ' possessor of the soil.'
of the largest edifices existing, cost upwards of a million sterling,
towards which Kumbha contributed eighty thousand pounds.
It is erected in the Sadri pass leading from the western descent
of the highlands of Mewar, and is dedicated to Rishabhadeva.1
Its secluded position has preserved it from bigoted fury, and its
only visitants now are the wild beasts who take shelter in its
sanctuary. Kumbha Rana was also a poet : but in a far more
elevated strain than the troubadour princes, his neighbours, who
contented themselves with rehearsing their own prowess or
celebrating their lady's beauty. He composed a tika, or appendix
to the ' Divine Melodies,' 2 in praise of Krishna. We can pass
no judgment on these inspirations of the royal bard, as we are
ignorant whether any are preserved in the records of the house :
a point his descendant, who is deeply skilled in such lore, might
probably answer.

==Mira Bai==

Kumbha married a daughter of the Rathor of
Merta, the first of the clans of Marwar. Mira Bai 3 was the most
celebrated princess of her time for beauty and romantic piety.
Her compositions were numerous, though better known to the
worshippers of the Hindu Apollo than to the ribald bards. Some
of her odes and hymns to the deity are preserved and admired.
Whether she imbibed her poetic piety from her husband, or

1 The Rana's minister, of the Jain faith, and of the tribe Porwar (one of
the twelve and a half divisions), laid the foundation of this temple in a.d.
1438. It was completed by subscription. It consists of three stories, and
is supported by numerous columns of granite, upwards of forty feet in height.
The interior is inlaid with mosaics of cornelian and agate. The statues of
the Jain saints are in its subterranean vaults. We could not expect much
elegance at a period when the arts had long been declining, but it would
doubtless afford a fair specimen of them, and enable us to trace their gradual
descent in the scale of refinement. This temple is an additional proof of
the early existence of the art of inlaying. That I did not see it is now to me
one of the many vain regrets which I might have avoided.
2 Gita Govinda.
3 [She was daughter of Ratiya Rana, and was married to Kiimbha in 1413.
Her great work is the Rag Gobind (Grierson, Modern Literature of Hindustan,
12 ; Macauhffe, The Sikh Religion, vi. 342 ff. ; I A, xxv. 19, xxxii. 329 £f. ;
ASR, xxiii. 106). As an illustration of the uncertainty of early Mewar
history, according to Har Bilas Sarda, author of the monograph on Rana
Kumbha, Mira Bai was not wife of Kiimbha, but of Bhojraj, son of Rana
Sanga. She was daughter of Ratan Singh of Merta, fourth son of Rao
Duda (a.d. 1461-62). She was married to Bhojraj a.d. 1516, and died in
1546.]
whether from her lie caught the sympathy which produced the
' sequel to the songs of Govinda,' we caruiot determine. Her
history is a romance, and her excess of devotion at every shrine
of the favourite deity with the fair of Hind, from the Yamuna to
' the world's end,' 1 gave rise to many [290] tales of scandal.
Kumbha mixed gallantry with his warlike pursuits. He carried
off the daughter of the chief of Jhalawar, who had been betrothed
to the prince of Mandor : this renewed the old feud, and the
Rathor made many attempts to redeem his affianced bride. His
humiliation was insupportable, when through the purified atmo
sphere of the periodical rains " the towers of Kumbhalmer became
visible from the castle of Mandor, and the light radiated from the
chamber of the fair through the gloom of a night in Bhadon,2 to
the hall where he brooded o'er his sorrows." It was surmised
that this night-lamp was an understood signal of the Jhalani,
who pined at the decree which ambition had dictated to her
father, in consigning her to the more powerful rival of her affianced
lord. The Rathor exhausted every resource to gain access to the
fair, and had once nearly succeeded in a surprise by escalade,
having cut his way in the night through the forest in the western
and least guarded acclivity : but, as the bard equivocally remarks,
" though he cut his way through the jhal (brushwood), he could
not reach the Jhalani."

==The Assassination of Rana Kiimbha, a.d. 1468==
Kumbha had
occupied the throne half a century ; he had triumphed over the
enemies of his race, fortified his country with strongholds, em
bellished it with temples, and with the superstructure of her fame
when, the year which should
have been a jubilee was disgraced by the foulest blot in the annals ;
and his life, which nature was about to close, terminated by the
that assassin, his son !

RanaUda, a.d. 1468-73.— This happened in S. 1525 (a.d. 1469).
Uda was the name of the parricide, whose unnatural ambition,
and impatience to enjoy a short lustre of sovereignty, bereft of
life the author of his existence. But such is the detestation
which marks this unusual crime that, like that of the Venetian
traitor, his name is left a blank in the annals, nor is Uda known
but by the epithet Hatyara, ' the murderer.' Shunned by his
kin, and compelled to look abroad for succour to maintain him
1 Jagat Khunt, or Dwarka. 2 The darkest of the rainy months.
on the throne polkited by his crime, Mewar in five years of
illegitimate rule lost half the consequence which had cost so many
to acquire. He made the Deora prince independent in Abu, and
bestowed Sambhar, Ajmer, and adjacent districts on the prince
of Jodhpur ^ as the price of his friendship. But, a prey to re
morse, he felt that he [291] could neither claim regard from, nor
place any dependence upon, these princes, though he bribed them
Avith provinces. He humbled himself before the king of Delhi,
offering him a daughter in marriage to obtain his sanction to his
authority ; " but heaven manifested its vengeance to prevent
this additional iniquity, and preserve the house of Bappa Rawal
from dishonour." He had scarcely quitted the divan {diwan
khana), on taking leave of the king, when a flash of lightning
struck the Hatyara to the earth, whence he never arose .2 The
bards pass over this period cursorily, as one of their race was the
instrument of Uda's crime.