Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c43.t1.440

v3.c43.t1.440

In a street to the north, and parallel to the first, but as yet incomplete, is a handsome temple, dedicated to the sixteenth Jain prophet. This also, I afterwards discovered, was an antique structure, recently repaired, and one of the hundred and eight temples, the bells of which sounded in the ancient city; whence its name Jhalrapatan, or ‘the city of bells,’ and not, as erroneously stated hitherto, from the tribe of the regent, Jhalara-patan, or ‘city of the Jhala’;¹ ignorance of which fact made me pass over the temples, under the supposition that they were coeval with its modern foundation. I stopped for a few moments at the mansion of the chief magistrate, Sah Maniram, and having expressed my admiration of all I had seen, and my hope that the prosperity of the city would redouble under his paternal care in these days of peace, I made my salaam and took leave. Opposite his house, engraved on a [730] pillar of stone, is the charter of rights of the city.² Its simplicity will excite a smile; but the philosopher may trace in it the first rudiments of that commercial greatness, which made the free cities of Europe the instruments of general liberty. Few of these had their privileges so thoroughly defined, or so scrupulously observed; and the motive which brought the community together was the surest guarantee against their infringement. A state of general war made them congregate, and was the origin of these immunities, which the existing peace and tranquillity will perpetuate. Any want of good faith would be the destruction of Patan.