Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.s2.19

v2.c28.s2.19

Rājput Morals compared with those of Europe in the Middle Ages.—We will here pause, and anticipating the just horror of the reader, at finding crime follow crime—one murder punished by another—prevent his consigning all the Rājput dynasties to infamy, because such foul stains appear in one part of their annals. Let him cast his eyes over the page of western history; and commencing with the period of Siahji’s emigration in the eleventh century, when the curtain of darkness was withdrawn from Europe, as it was simultaneously closing upon the Rājput, contrast their respective moral characteristics. The Rājput chieftain was imbued with all the kindred virtues of the western cavalier, and far his superior in mental attainments. There is no period on record when these Hindu princes could not have signed their names to a charter; many of them could have drawn it up, and even invested it, if required, in a poetic garb; and although this consideration perhaps enhances, rather than palliates, crime, what are the instances in these States, we may ask, compared to the wholesale atrocities of the ‘Middle Ages’ of Europe?