Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.s1.t2.150

v2.c28.s1.t2.150

Having installed his officers in Ajmer, Abhai Singh proceeded to Merta, when he was met by his brother, Bakhta Singh, on which occasion the grant of Nagor was bestowed upon the latter. The brothers continued their route to the capital, when all the chiefs were dismissed to their homes with injunctions to assemble their vassals for the ensuing campaign against Sarbuland. At the appointed time, the Kher (feudal array) of Marwar assembled under the walls of Jodhpur. The occasion is a delightful one to the bard, who revels in all “the pomp and circumstance of war”: from the initiatory ceremony, the moving out the tents, to the consecration of the ‘mighty tubes’ (balwannal), the ‘volcanos of the field,’ or, as he terms them, the ‘crocodile-mouths’ (magarmukhan), ‘emblems of Yama,’ which were sprinkled abundantly with the blood of goats slain under their muzzles. He describes each clan as it arrives, their steeds, and caparisons.