Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.s1.t2.86

v2.c28.s1.t2.86

Character of Ajīt Singh.—Thus closed the career of one of the most distinguished princes who ever pressed the ‘cushion’ of Maru; a career as full of incident as any life of equal duration. Born amidst the snows of Kabul, deprived at his birth of both parents, one from grief, the other by suicidal custom; saved from the Herodian cruelty of the king by the heroism of his chiefs, nursed amidst the rocks of Abu or the intricacies of the Aravalli until the day of danger passed, he issued forth, still an infant, at the head of his brave clans, to redeem the inheritance so iniquitously wrested from him. In the history of mankind there is nothing to be found presenting a more brilliant picture of fidelity than that afforded by the Rathor clans in their devotion to their prince, from his birth until he worked out his own and his country’s deliverance. It is one of those events which throw a gleam of splendour upon the dark picture of feudalism, more prolific perhaps in crime than in virtue. That of the Rajputs, indeed, in which consanguinity is superadded to the other reciprocal [95] ties which bind a feudal body, wears the more engaging aspect of a vast family. How affecting is the simple language of these brave men, while daily shedding their blood for a prince whom, until he had attained his seventh year, they had never beheld! “Without the sight of our lord, bread and water have no flavour.” And how successfully does the bard portray the joy of these stern warriors, when he says, “As the lotus expands at the sunbeam, so did the heart of each Rathor at the sight of their infant sovereign; they drank his looks even as the papiha in the month of Asoj sips the drops of amrita (ambrosia) from the Champa.”