Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s5.116

v1.c20.s5.116

Treatment of the Rāna by Jahāngīr.—To have generalized this detail of the royal historian would have been to lessen the interest of this important period in the annals of Mewar. Jahangir merits to have his exultation, his noble and unostentatious conduct, described by his own pen, the extreme minuteness of which description but increases the interest. With his self-gratulation, he bears full testimony to the gallant and long-protracted resistance of the Rajputs; and while he impartially, though rather erroneously, estimates their motives and means of opposition, he does Amra ample justice in the declaration, that he did not yield until he had but the alternative of captivity or exile; and with a magnanimity above all praise, he records the Rajput prince’s salvo for his dignity, “that he would hold himself excused from attending in person.” The simple and naïve declaration of his joy, “his going abroad on ‘Alam Guman,’” the favourite elephant of the Rana which had been captured, on learning his submission, is far stronger than the most pompous testimony of public rejoicing. But there is a heart-stirring philanthropy in the conduct of the Mogul which does him immortal honour; and in commanding his son “to treat the illustrious one according to his heart’s wishes,” though he so long and so signally had foiled the royal armies, he proved himself worthy of the good fortune he acknowledges, and well shows his sense of the superiority of the chief of all the Rajputs, by placing the heir of Mewar, even above all the princes of his own house, ‘immediately on his right hand.’ Whether he attempts to relieve the shyness of Karan, or sets forth the princely appearance of Jagat Singh, we see the same amiable feeling operating to lighten the chains of the conquered. But the shyness of Karan deserved a worthier term: he felt the degradation which neither the statues raised to them, the right hand of the monarch, the dignity of a ‘commander of five thousand,’ or even the restoration of the long-alienated territory could neutralize, when the kingdom to which he was heir was called a fief (jagir), and himself, ‘the descendant of a hundred kings,’ a vassal (jagirdar) of the empire, under whose banner, which his ancestors had so signally opposed, he was now to follow with a contingent of fifteen hundred Rajput horse.