Later Mughals v1.c6.s8.5

v1.c6.s8.5

The Kachhwaha State of Amber was comparatively obscure and unimportant when the Mughal period began. It was the first to succumb to the Mughal advance, its Rajahs gave their daughters to the Emperors, and entering their service rose to high employ in the Muhammadan State. Rajah Jai Singh, first of that name, known best by his title of Mirza Rajah, played a conspicuous part in the reign of Shah Jahan between the years 1644 and 1658. In this way the State of Amber, although not larger or wealthier than some of the other secondary States, grew to be considered on an equality with the two largest and most important States of Mewar and Marwar. At the beginning of the 18th century these three States were politically speaking of equal importance. The immediate successors of the Mirza Rajah had not been men of the same note, and since 1699 the chieftainship had been held by his grandson Jai Singh, now in 1707 a young man of about twenty-one years of age.* As we have seen, Jai Singh had espoused the wrong side, that of the defeated Azam Shah; and he suffered from a rival claimant in the person of his younger brother Bijai Singh, who with greater prudence or better luck had joined the army of Bahadur Shah before the decisive battle, having previously lived for some time in the Kabul province under the protection of Prince Shah Alam.