Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c17.s5.8

v1.c17.s5.8

¹ Presented to the Royal Asiatic Society. ² Moghji, one of the most intelligent bards of the present day; but, heartbroken, he has now but the woes of his race to sing. Yet has he forgot them for a moment to rehearse the deeds of Parsanga, who sealed his fidelity by his death on the Ghaggar. Then the invisible mantle of Bhavani was wrapt around him; and with the birad (furor poeticus) flowing freely of their deeds of yore, their present degradation, time, and place were all forgot. But the time is fast approaching when he may sing with the Cambrian bard: “Ye lost companions of my tuneful art, Where are ye fled?” ³ One or two specimens shall be given in the proper place. ⁴ A prince of Bundi had married a Rajputni of the Malani tribe, a name now unknown: but a bard repeating the ‘gotracharya,’ it was discovered to have been about eight centuries before a ramification (sakha) of the Chauhan, to which the Hara of Bundi belonged—divorce and expiatory rites, with great unhappiness, were the consequences. What a contrast to the unhallowed doctrines of polyandry, as mentioned amongst the Pandavas, the Scythic nations, the inhabitants of Sirmor of the present day, and pertaining even to Britain in the days of Caesar!—“Uxores habent deni