Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c27.s6.34

v2.c27.s6.34

of *jhutha darbar*, ‘the lying court,’ applied to Jaipur; while the most comprehensive measure of praise is the simple epithet of *sachha*,¹ ‘the truth-teller.’ Again, there are many shades between deceit and dissimulation : the one springs from natural depravity; the other may be assumed, as with the Rajput, in self-defence. But their laws, the mode of administering them, and the operation of external causes, must be attentively considered before we can form a just conclusion of the springs which regulate the character of a people. We must examine the opinions of the competent of past days, when political independence yet remained to the Rajputs, and not found our judgment of a nation upon a superficial knowledge of individuals. To this end I shall avail myself of the succinct but philosophical remarks of Abu-l-fazl, the wise minister of the wise Akbar, which are equally applicable to mankind at large, as to the particular people we are treating of. “If,” he says, speaking of the Hindus, “a diligent investigator were to examine the temper and disposition of the people of each tribe, he would find every individual differing in some respect or other. Some among them are virtuous in the highest degree, and others carry vice to the greatest excess. They are renowned for wisdom, disinterested friendship, obedience to their superiors, and many other virtues: but, at the same time, there are among them men whose hearts are obdurate and void of shame, turbulent spirits, who for the merest trifle will commit the greatest outrages.”²