Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c28.s3.t1.8

v2.c28.s3.t1.8

Influence of Court Morals.—The paramount influence which the morals and manners of a court exert upon a nation, is everywhere admitted. In constitutional governments, there is a barrier even to court influence and corruption, in the vast portion of wealth and worth which cannot be engulfed in their vortex. But in these petty sovereignties no such check is found, and the tone of virtue and action is given from the throne. The laws of semi-barbarous nations, which admit of licentious concubinage, have ever been peculiar to orientals, from the days of the wise king of the Jews to those of Bijai Singh of Marwar; and their political consequence has been the same, the sacrifice of the rights of lawful inheritance to the heirs of illicit affection. The last years of the king of Maru were engrossed by sentimental folly with a young beauty of the Oswal tribe, on whom he lavished all the honours due only to his legitimate queens. Scandal affirms that she frequently returned his passion in a manner little becoming royal dignity, driving him from her presence with the basest of missiles—her shoes. As the effects of this unworthy attachment completed the anarchy of Marwar, and as its consequences on deviating from the established rules of succession have entailed a perpetuity of crime and civil war, under which this unfortunate State yet writhes, we shall be minute, even to dullness, in the elucidation [135] of this portion of their annals, to enable those who have now to arbitrate these differences to bring back a current of uncontaminated blood to sway the destinies of this still noble race.