Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.147

v2.c28.147

Inhospitable Conduct of Rāo Māldeo to Humāyūn, A.D. 1542.—Ten years of undisturbed possession were granted Maldeo to perfect his designs, ere his cares were diverted from these to his own defence. Babur, the founder of the Mogul dynasty, was dead, and his son and successor had been driven from his newly conquered throne by his provincial lieutenant, Sher Shah : so rapidly do revolutions crowd upon each other where the sword is the universal arbitrator. We have elsewhere related that the fugitive monarch sought the protection of Maldeo, and we stigmatized his conduct as unnational ; but we omitted to state that Maldeo, then heir-apparent, lost his eldest, perhaps then only son Raemall in the battle of Bayana, who led the aid of Marwar on that memorable day, and consequently the name of Chagatai, whether in fortune or in flight, had no great claims to his regard. But little did Maldeo dream how closely the fortunes of his house would be linked with those of the fugitive Humayun, and that the infant Akbar, born in this emergency, was destined to revenge this breach of hospitality. Still less could the proud Rathor, who traced his ancestry on the throne of Kanauj one thousand years before the birth of the “ barbarian ” of Ferghana, deem it within the range of probability, that he should receive honours at such hands, or that the first title of Raja, Rajeswar, or ‘raja, lord of rajas,’ would be conferred on his own son by this infant, then rearing amidst the sandhills at the extremity of his desert dominion ! It is curious to indulge in the speculative inquiry, whether, when the great Akbar girded Udai Singh with the sword of honour, and marked his forehead with the unguent of Raja-shah, he brought to mind the conduct of Maldeo, which doomed his birth to take place in the dismal castle of Umarkot, instead of in the splendid halls of Delhi [27].