Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c47.s4.18

v4.c47.s4.18

In fact, the hoarded wealth of the Rajas of Rajputana was a myth and the Marathas took many years to realise this fact. The story had spread that Sawāi Jai Singh of Jaipur and Abhay Singh of Mārwār, during their viceroyalties of Mālwā and Gujrāt respectively in the reign of Emperor Muhammad Shah, had accumulated many krores of Rupees. The story was confirmed by the laudatory poems of the Rajput bards, each of whom exaggerated his patron’s riches in order to flatter him. The sober reality can be judged from the fact that while the standard income of the Jaipur State was a hundred lakhs in 1743, it had sunk to 16 lakhs in 1818 when the English undertook its protection. In 1786 the Jaipur diwān Khush-hāli Rām Bohrā told Mahādji Sindhiā,—“You demand the payment of 60 lakhs of Rupees as our debt. We have not even sixty lakhs of broken potsherds in our Treasury. How can we pay so many Rupees?” (*DY*. i. 163.)