Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s7.78

v1.c20.s7.78

Rāna Sangrām Singh II., A.D. 1710-34.—Sangram Singh (the lion of battle) succeeded; a name renowned in the annals of Mewar, being that of the opponent of the founder of the Moguls. He ascended the throne about the same time with Muhammad Shah,¹ the last of the race of Timur who deserved the name of emperor of India. During the reign of Sangram, from A.D. 1716 to 1734, this mighty empire was dismembered; when, in lieu of one paramount authority, numerous independent governments started up, which preserved their uncertain existence until the last revolution, which has given a new combination to these discordant materials—Muhammadan, Mahratta, and Rajput, in the course of one century under the dominion of a handful of Britons! Like the Satraps of the ancient Persian, or the Lieutenants of Alexander, each chief proclaimed himself master of the province, the government of which was confided to his loyalty and talents; and it cannot fail to diminish any regret at the successive prostration of Bengal, Oudh, Haidarabad, and other less conspicuous States, to remember that they were founded in rebellion, and erected on ingratitude; and that their rulers were destitute of those sympathies, which could alone give stability to their ephemeral greatness, by improving the condition of their subjects. With the Mahrattas the case is different: their emergence to power claims our admiration, when tyranny transformed the industrious husbandman, and the minister of religion, into a hardy and enterprising soldier, and a skilful functionary of government. Had their ambition been restrained within legitimate bounds, it would have been no less gratifying than politically and morally just that the family of Sivaji should have retained its [406] authority in countries which his active valour wrested from Aurangzeb. But the genius of conquest changed their natural habits; they devastated instead of consolidating; and in lieu of that severe and frugal simplicity, and that energy of enterprise, which were their peculiar characteristics, they became distinguished for mean parsimony, low cunning, and dastardly depredation. Had they, retaining their original character, been content with their proper sphere of action, the Deccan, they might yet have held the sovereignty of that vast region, where their habits and language assimilated them with the people. But as they spread over the north they encountered national antipathies, and though professing the same creed, a wider difference in sentiment divided the Mahratta from the Rajput, than from the despots of Delhi, whose tyrannical intolerance was more endurable, because less degrading, than the rapacious meanness of the Southron. Rajasthan benefited by the demolition of the empire : to all but Mewar it yielded an extension of power. Had the national mind been allowed to repose, and its energies to recruit, after so many centuries of demoralization, all would have recovered their strength, which lay in the opinions and industry of the people, a devoted tenantry and brave vassalage, whom we have so often depicted as abandoning their habitations and pursuits to aid the patriotic views of their princes.