Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c40.200

v3.c40.200

Famines.—Famine is, however, the grand natural disease of these regions, whose legendary stanzas teem with records of visitations of Bhukhi Mata, the ‘famished mother,’ from the remotest times. That which is best authenticated in the traditions of several of these States, occurred in the eleventh century, and continued during twelve years! It is erroneously connected with the name of Lakha Phulani, who was the personal foe of Siahji, the first Rathor emigrant from Kanauj, and who slew this Robin Hood of the desert in S. 1268 (A.D. 1212). Doubtless the desiccation of the Ghaggar River, in the time of Hamir Sodha, nearly a century before, must have been the cause of this. Every third year they calculate upon a partial visitation, and in 1812 one commenced which lasted three or four years, extending even to the central States of India, when flocks of poor creatures found their way to the provinces on the Ganges, selling their infants, or parting with their own liberty, to sustain existence.¹