Part 19 (1/2)
But in addition to Mewar we have to reckon with Marwar, or Jodhpur and Jeysulmeer. The former, however, was at this time a comparatively modern princ.i.p.ality. After the defeat of Jaichand, the Rajah of Kanauj--who had so unavailingly performed the Sai-nair rite at which Prithvi-Raj had carried off the Princess Sunjogata--his grandsons s.h.i.+v-ji and Sayat-Ram, set out towards the great Indian Desert, hoping to carve fresh fortune from its barren stretches. They succeeded; but it was not until A.D. 1511 that Prince Jodha laid the foundation of a new capital, and brought Marwar into line with the other great Rajput powers.
Jeysulmeer had a longer record. Headquarters of the Bhatti clan, its legendary history goes back to the eighth century; but from A.D. 1156 the chronicle is fairly continuous, and is full of romance and interest. Proud, pa.s.sionate, clean-lived princes, these descendants of the Moon--for they were of the Yadu race--seem to have been. One of them, still quite a lad, giving way to Berserk rage, struck his foster-brother. The blow was returned; whereupon, stung with shame, both at the insult and the lack of self-control which brought it about, the offender stabbed himself with his dagger. Another still more typical story is told of the pa.s.sing of Rawul (an honorific t.i.tle equalling Rajah) Chachik, who, finding disease his master, sent an emba.s.sy to the Mahomedan ruler of Multan, begging from him the last favour of _jud-dan_, or the gift of battle, ”that his soul might escape by the steel of his foeman, and not fall sacrifice to slow disease.”
The challenge was accepted, after the Mahomedan had been a.s.sured that honourable death was the sole end and aim.
So on the appointed day Rawul Chachik, followed by seven hundred n.o.bles, who, having shared all his victories, were prepared to follow him to death, marched out ”to part with life.”
”His soul was rejoiced, he performed his ablutions, wors.h.i.+pped the sword, bestowed charity, and withdrew his thoughts from this world.
The battle lasted four hours, and the Yadu prince fell with all his kin, after performing prodigees of valour. Two thousand Mahomedans fell beneath their swords, and rivers of blood flowed in the field; but the Bhatti gained the abode of Indra, who shared His throne with the hero.”
Such, then, were the people who were gradually recovering some of the possessions and the prestige which they had lost when Prithvi-Raj fell victim to Mahomed Shahab-ud-din Ghori.
Meanwhile, at Delhi the thirty-six years of kinglessness pa.s.sed into seventy-three, during which the government was in the hands of three comparatively strong men, Belol Lodi, Secunder Lodi, Ibrahim Lodi.
The first was a warrior, the second a bigot, the third a tyrant. Of the three, Belol did most for his country, since at his death his empire extended eastwards as far as Benares.
Secunder seems to have subordinated policy to religion. He destroyed every image and temple which he could see, or of which he could hear, and promptly put to death a Brahman who preached that ”all religions, if sincerely practised, were equally acceptable to G.o.d.”
Tolerance was not a virtue in those days.
It was during the reign of Ibrahim Lodi that Babar, the first of the great Moghuls, entered India in A.D. 1514; but this was an event of such vast importance that it will be necessary to hark back some thirty years to the little kingdom of Ferghana, where Babar was born on the 14th of February, A.D. 1483.
[Map: India to A.D. 1483]
THE GREAT MOGHULS
BABAR THE ADVENTURER
A.D. 1483 TO A.D. 1514
Born on St Valentine's Day, A.D. 1483, the boy-baby, who was hereafter to be called Zahir-ud-din Mahomed, and nicknamed Babar, must have been plentifully supplied with fairy G.o.dmothers, for he was gifted with almost every possible gift.
To begin with, he had good looks, even judging by the curious portraits of those days. Then, there can be no question of his ability as a soldier, while intellectually he would have been remarkable in any age. Besides this, he was possessed of the true artistic temperament to a quite unusual degree; he was painter, poet, author, and in the smallest thing that he wrote showed unerring literary skill and taste.
Beyond, and above all, however, he had that nameless charm which makes him, surely, the most delightful personality known to history.
Given such a man, it would be sheer perversity to treat of him solely in reference to the part he played in India, as this would be to deprive ourselves of no less than thirty-six years of the very best of company.
So let us begin at the very beginning. It is possible to do this with an accuracy un.o.btainable with any other Indian king--or, indeed, with any king of any clime--because Babar left to the ages an autobiography of himself, his thoughts, his acts, his failures, his successes, which is, truly, a quite extraordinary record. Between the covers lies a whole, real, live, human being.
It opens, however, with these words, ”In the year 1494, and in the twelfth year of my age, I became King of Ferghana.” We have therefore to go back eleven years for the birth of Babar. Before doing this, a glance round the world will give us the _milieu_ in which our hero was to play his part.
Briefly, then, Vasco da Gama had but just discovered India, Henry VII.
was King of England. Michelangelo was revolutionising the world of art, Copernicus creating that of science. For the rest, a hundred years had pa.s.sed since Timur the ”Earth Trembler” had shaken literally the whole world; for his grip on it had reached West to Moscow and East to China. Yet a hundred years further back again Chengiz Khan had swept over the same ground like a devastating flame.