Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c47.s2.3

v4.c47.s2.3

The Chāmpā-ot clan of Rāthores, at whose head stood the chieftain of Pokaran, with their allies seized the capital and its palace-citadel and conducted the government themselves, reducing the king to a puppet. But Bijay Singh’s nurse’s son Jagoo and spiritual director Atmārām, under the sage counsel of Govardhan Khichi, contrived to hire a band of 700 mercenaries from Sindh and thus form a royal bodyguard independent of the baronial levies, who used to obey their own lords even against the king. In February 1760, these “king’s friends” contrived the treacherous murder of most of the usurping barons. “This was a tremendous sacrifice, for the maintenance of authority, of men who had often emptied their veins in defence of their country ;” but the crime had immediate success: “for a time, the feudal interest was restrained, anarchy was allayed, commerce again flourished, and general prosperity revived.... Bijay Singh took the best means to secure the fidelity of his chiefs by finding them occupation. He carried his arms against the desultory hordes of the desert, the Khosās and the Sahrās, .... which ended in the conquest of Amarkot. He also curtailed the territories of Jesālmir on his north-west frontier.” (Tod, ii. Marwar, ch. XIII.)