Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c43.t1.514

v3.c43.t1.514

Menāl or Mahānāl, February 21.—It is fortunate that the pencil can here portray what transcends the power of the pen; to it we shall, therefore, leave the architectural wonders of Mahanal, and succinctly describe the site. It is difficult to conceive what [746] could have induced the princely races of Chitor or Ajmer to select such a spot as an appanage for the cadets of their families, which in summer must be a furnace, owing to the reflection of the sun's rays from the rock: tradition, indeed, asserts that it is to the love of the sublime alone we are indebted for these singular structures. The name is derived from the position Mahanal, ‘the great chasm,’ or cleft in the western face of the Patar, presenting an abyss of about four hundred feet in depth, over which, at a sharp re-entering angle, falls a cascade, and though now but a rill, it must be a magnificent object in the rainy season. Within this dell it would be death to enter: gloomy as Erebus, crowded with majestic foliage entangled by the twisted boughs of the Amarvela, and affording cover to all description of the inhabitants, quadruped and feathered, of the forest. On the very brink of the precipice, overhanging the abyss, is the group of mixed temples and dwellings, which bear the name of Prithiraj (vide Plate); while those on the opposite side are distinguished by that of Samarsi of Chitor, the brother-in-law of the Chauhan emperor of Delhi and Ajmer, whose wife, Pirthabai, has been immortalized by Chand, with her husband and brother.¹ Here, the grand cleft between them, these two last bulwarks of the Rajput races were accustomed to meet with their families, and pass days of affectionate intercourse, in which no doubt the political condition of India was a prominent topic of discussion. If we may believe, and we have no reason to distrust, the testimony of Chand, had Prithiraj listened to the counsel of the Ulysses of the Hindus (in which light Samarsi was regarded by friend and foe), the Islamite never would have been lord of Hindustan. But the indomitable courage and enthusiastic enterprise of Prithiraj sunk them all; and when neither wisdom nor valour could save him from destruction, the heroic prince of Chitor was foremost to court it. Both fell on the banks of the Ghaggar, amidst heroes of every tribe in Rajputana. It was indeed to them, as the bard justly terms it, pralaya, the day of universal doom; and the last field maintained for their national dependence. To me, who have pored over their poetic legends, and imbibed all those sympathies which none can avoid who study the Rajput character, there was a melancholy charm in the solemn ruins of Menal. It was a season, too, when everything conspired to nourish this feeling; the very trees which were crowded about these relics of departed glory, appearing by their leafless boughs and lugubrious aspect to join in the universal mourning.