Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.15

v2.c28.15

Genealogy ceases to be an uninteresting pursuit when it enables us to mark the progress of animal vegetation, from the germ to the complete development of the tree, until the land is overshadowed with its branches; and bare as is the chronicle to the moralist or historian, it exhibits to the observer of the powers of the animal economy, data which the annals of no other people on earth can furnish. In A.D. 1193 we see the throne of Jaichand overturned; his nephew, with a handful of retainers, taking service with a petty chieftain in the Indian desert. In less than four centuries we find the descendants of these exiles of the Ganges occupying nearly the whole of the desert; having founded three capitals, studded the land with the castles of its feudality, and bringing into the field fifty thousand men, *ek bap ka beta*, ‘the sons of one father,’ to combat the emperor of Delhi. What a contrast does their unnoticed growth present to that of the Islamite conquerors of Kanauj, of whom five dynasties passed away in ignorance of the renovated existence of the Rathor, until the ambition of Sher Shah brought him into contact with the descendants of Siahji, whose valour caused him to exclaim “he had nearly lost the crown of India for a handful of barley,” in allusion to the poverty of their land! ¹