Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c11.s1.8

v1.c11.s1.8

The ruler of Jodhpur, Mahārājah Rāj-Rājeshwar Abhay Singh, for such were his superlative titles, (r. 1724—1749), had been solicited by the Emperor to take up the *subahdāri* of Gujrāt (1729.) After a year spent at home in making preparations, he had reached Ahmadābād (October, 1730) and made his appointment good by defeating his refractory and dismissed predecessor Sarbuland Khān. The spoils of this campaign were reported in the pardonable hyperbole of his Court poets as "four *kror* of Rupees and 1,400 guns of all calibres, besides military stores of every description." His bardic flatterers sang, "Abhay Malla rules over the seventeen thousand towns of Gujrāt and nine thousand of Mārwār besides one thousand elsewhere. The princes of Idar, Bhuj, Pārkar, Sind, Sirohi, Jesalmir, Jhunjhuno, Dongarpur . . . . and Nāgor every morning bowed the head to Abhay Malla." Though his governorship of Gujrat had ended ingloriously in two years in his surrender of *chauth* to the Marāthas and his return home with failure, such eulogies would have turned a stronger head than his. He became insane with pride. "His ferocious courage was tempered only by excessive indolence . . . . and his love of ease and opium increased with years." (Tod, ii. Marwar, ch. 11.)