Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c42.s2.t1.266

v3.c42.s2.t1.266

Wrestling.—His corps of gladiators, if we may thus designate the Jethis, obtained for him equal credit and disgrace. The funds set apart for this recreation amounted at one time to fifty thousand rupees per annum; but his wrestlers surpassed in skill and strength those of every other court in Rajwara, and the most renowned champions of other States were made “to view the heavens,”⁴ if they came to Kotah. But in his younger days Zalim was not satisfied with the use of mere natural weapons, for occasionally he made his Jethis fight with the *baghnakh*,⁵ or tiger-claw, when they tore off the flesh from each other [590]. The chivalrous Ummed Singh of Bundi put a stop to this barbarity. Returning from one of his pilgrimages from Dwarka, he passed through Kotah while Zalim and his court were assembled in the akhara (arena) where two of these stall-fed prize-fighters were about to contend. The presence of this brave Hara checked the bloody exhibition, and he boldly censured the Regent for squandering on such a worthless crew resources which ought to cherish his Rajputs. This might have been lost upon the Protector, had not the royal pilgrim, in the fervour of his indignation, thrown down the gauntlet to the entire assembly of Jethis. Putting his shield on the ground, he placed therein, one by one, the entire panoply of armour which he habitually wore in his peregrinations, namely, his matchlock and its ponderous accompaniments, sword, daggers, staff, and battleaxe, and challenged any individual to raise it from the ground with a single arm. All tried and failed; when Sriji, though full sixty years of age, held it out at arm's length during several seconds. The Haras were delighted at the feat of their patriarchal chief; while the crest-fallen Jethis hung their heads, and from that day lost ground in the favour of the regent. But these were the follies of his earlier days, not of the later period of his life: he was then like an aged oak, which, though shattered and decayed, had survived the tempest and the desolation which had raged around it.