Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.s2.20

v2.c28.s2.20

The reader would also be wrong if he leaped to the conclusion that the bardic chronicler passed no judgment on the princely criminal. His “empoisoned stanzas” (*vishwa sloka*), transmitted to posterity by the mouth of the peasant and the prince, attest the reverse. One couplet has been recorded, stigmatizing Bakhta for the murder of his father; there is another of the chief bard, improvised while his prince Abhai Singh and Jai Singh of Amber were passing the period devoted [120] to religious rites at the sacred lake of Pushkar. These ceremonies never stood in the way of festivity; and one evening, while these princes and their vassals were in the height of merriment, the bard was desired to contribute to it by some extemporaneous effusion. He rose, and vociferated in the ears of the horror-struck assembly the following quatrain:—