Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c42.s1.t4.47

v3.c42.s1.t4.47

When Ummeda resigned the sceptre of the Haras, it was from the conviction that a life of meditation alone could yield the consolation, and obtain the forgiveness which he found necessary to his repose. But in assuming the pilgrim’s staff, he did not lay aside any feeling becoming his rank or his birth. There was no pusillanimous prostration of intellect; no puling weakness of bigoted sentiment, but the same lofty mind which redeemed his birthright, accompanied him wherever he bent his steps to seek knowledge in the society of devout and holy men. He had read in the annals of his own and of other States, that “the trappings of royalty were snares to perdition, and that happy was the man who in time threw them aside and made his peace with heaven.” But in obeying, at once, the dictates of conscience and of custom, he felt his mind too much alive to the wonders of creation, to bury himself in the fane of Kanhaiya, or the sacred baths on the Ganges; and he determined to see all those holy places commemorated in the ancient epics of his nation, and the never-ending theme of the wandering devotee. In this determination he was, perhaps, somewhat influenced by that love of adventure in which he had been nurtured, and it was a balm to his mind when he found that arms and religion were not only compatible, but that his pious resolution to force a way through the difficulties which beset the pilgrim’s path, enhanced the merit of his devotion. Accordingly, the royal ascetic went forth on his pilgrimage, not habited in the hermit’s garb, but armed at all points. Even in this there was penance, not ostentation, and he carried or buckled on his person one of every species of offensive or defensive weapon then in use: a load which would oppress any two Rajputs in these degenerate times. He wore a quilted tunic, which would resist a sabre-cut; besides a matchlock, a lance, a sword, a dagger, and their appurtenances of knives, pouches, and priming-horn, he had a battle-axe, a javelin, a tomahawk, a discus, bow and quiver of arrows; and it is affirmed that such was his muscular power, even when threescore and ten years had blanched his beard in wandering to and fro thus accoutred, that he could place the whole of this panoply within his shield, and with one arm not only raise it, but hold it for some seconds extended [497].