Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.244

v2.c28.244

The south continued to be the arena in which the martial Rajput sought renown, and the emperor had only rightly to understand his character to turn the national emulation to account. Shah Jahan, in the language of the chronicler, “became a slave to the seraglio,” and sent his sons, as viceroys, to govern the grand divisions of the empire. The first service of Jaswant was in the war of Gondwana, when he led a body composed of “twenty-two different contingents” in the army under Aurangzeb.² In this and various other services (to enumerate which would be to go [48] over the ground already passed),³ the Rathors were conspicuous. Jaswant played a comparatively subordinate part, until the illness of the emperor, in A.D. 1658, when his elder son Dara was invested with the powers of regent.⁴ Prince Dara increased the mansab of Jaswant to a leader of “five thousand,” and nominated him his viceroy in Malwa.