The Kachvāhā rulers of Amer occupied high ranks in the military-bureaucratic order of the Mughal empire. Akbar had brought them under Mughal suzerainty, and Kachvāhā kings contributed significantly to the expansion and stability of Mughal rule. By giving Kachvāhā princesses to Mughals in marriage, affinal and sanguinal relationships added to strengthening the bond between Mughals and those Rajputs.
The period of Aurangzeb was one of both territorial expansion and growing instability of Mughal power. At the Mughal court, rival factions vied with each other for dominance, and sub-imperial regional powers became more and more self-assertive. The most virulent regional power arose with the Marathas under their leader Shivaji (d. 1680). Formally subject to the emperor, he openly challenged Aurangzeb from 1659. Eventually, in 1676, he had himself consecrated king. Maratha influence spread sweepingly over wide parts of the empire. Shivaji also functioned as a catalyst for latent or overt seditious tendencies in the regional states.
This was a process with delicate beginnings hard to pinpoint. While Hindus and Muslims (Turk, Turuṣka, Yavana) had been engaged in defining themselves, or one another for a while, a Hindu ideology directed against a political power inimically described as Muslim took time to evolve. Such a characterisation of the past hardened, in particular, in the colonial and post-colonial period.Footnote 1
As for the Kachvāhās, the challenge of Shivaji and particularly the involvement of the Kachvāhās in the confrontation between Aurangzeb and Shivaji in the years between 1665 and 1666 triggered a process which culminated in the early eighteenth century, when they came to expressly define their rule as Hindu-rule.Footnote 2 The long regnal period of emperor Aurangzeb (1658–1707)Footnote 3 coincides partly or fully with the regnal periods of four Kachvāhā rulers, namely, Mirza Raja Jai Singh (Jai Singh I; 1621–1667), Ram Singh (1667–1689), Bisan Singh (1689–1699), and Savāī Jai Singh (Jai Singh II; 1700–1743).
Court literature and genealogical texts reflect the image of Aurangzeb in Kachvāhā ideology. All the relevant literary texts belong to the post-Aurangzeb period. Relevant passages in Kachvāhā genealogies are not easy to date for their first occurrence but assumed final shape in the mid-nineteenth century. Broadly speaking, in the versions that have come down to us those sources cover the period from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century and thereby straddle the pre-colonial and colonial period.
Since the nineteenth century, the colonial view as it was expressed in an exemplary manner by James Tod gained wide currency. Aurangzeb was portrayed as a bigoted tyrant resorting even to diabolic schemes in dealing with Kachvāhās.Footnote 4 From this time, a divisive ideological stance was read back into the past, and particularly Aurangzeb earned himself the evil reputation of a Muslim fanatic. In modern research, this image has been corrected by scholars who emphasize the complex political considerations that influenced Mughal policy, thereby falsifying the reductionist interpretation of certain events as squarely directed against Hindu religion.Footnote 5 It is possible to demonstrate however, that in the relationship between Aurangzeb and the Kachvāhās, a fateful tension built up in the aftermath of the affair of Shivaji. What follows focuses on how published Kachvāhā literary and genealogical sources assess Aurangzeb's attitude towards the Kachvāhās in light of these developments. Three topics loom large in all of them, while only two mention the fourth topic:
1. Jai Singh I and Aurangzeb (from 1659)
2. The role of Ram Singh in the affair of Shivaji (1665-1666)
3. Aurangzeb's dealing with Prince Kisan Singh (1678)
4. Prince Jai Singh (the future Jai Singh II) at Aurangzeb's court (1696-1698)
Sources
Court poetry
Court poetry pronounces the official ideology, while genealogy (vaṃśāvalī) serves the legitimation of lineages in Kachvāhā hierarchy. Authors of texts of both these genres had access to the records and correspondence — or at least the information provided to them by the record-keepers — of either the royal court or the nobles for whom they worked. They did not misrepresent this historical material but digested it according to their needs.
Before briefly describing the actual sources, mention may be made of a court poem that does not mention Aurangzeb but sets the tune prevailing in subsequent compositions. This is Viśvanātha Cittapāvana Rāṇade's Rāmavilāsa-kāvya, written in Sanskrit in 1709, two years after Aurangzeb's death.Footnote 6 It describes the early regnal phase of Jai Singh II and especially his Vājapeya sacrifice, imagined to give its performer the status of a paramount ruler (samrāṭ). It represents one of the literary projects by which Jai Singh II was given the aura of a ruler who drew his strength from a specifically Hindu understanding of kingship. The text does not mention even once Aurangzeb or the Kachvāhās’ interaction with him. It is, however, important in reflecting the open animosity unleashed by the Kachvāhās against the Mughal military power invading their territory after Aurangzeb's death and from that period commonly retroactively linked with Aurangzeb. It sets a dividing line between the formerly latent and henceforth open expressions of Kachvāhā subversion of submission to the emperor.
In court poetry, express subversion first appears around 1750. By this time, critique of Aurangzeb — then dead by forty years — has become a way of denouncing the authority of the latter-day Mughals. The first such text is the Sanskrit Īśvaravilāsā-mahākāvya by Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa, who had served as a Kachvāhā court poet from the early 1730s.Footnote 7 While ostensibly a poem about Īśvar Singh (1743–1750), the son and successor of Jai Singh II, it represents for its first half a multi-faceted account of Jai Singh's reign to which is appended as the second half Īśvar Singh's story. The poem remained apparently incomplete beyond its fourteenth chapter and does not have a colophon and is therefore undated.
The second court poem is the vernacular Kūrma-vilās by Cand Kavi.Footnote 8 A huge historical poem of about 2,450 stanzas, it was written in the years from 1853 to 1857.Footnote 9 The text is organised strictly chronologically. Almost all events are mentioned by their exact dates, which suggests that the poem was composed with the court records at hand. The work was commissioned by Lachman Singh of Comū, the Kachvāhā prime minister.Footnote 10 The late 1850s was the period when Jaipur, under British Paramountcy since 1818, underwent incisive administrative reforms undertaken by Ram Singh with the help of his British mentors. Kūrma-vilās represents the sum total of the Kachvāhā dynasty at the stage of renewal when those vigorously undertaken reforms happened. The support of Jaipur State for his project can be gauged from the overwhelming mass of records tapped by Cand Kavi.Footnote 11 Cand's work partly shares narrations, anecdotes, and motifs with the published genealogy used here and described in the following paragraph that are absent from the Īśvaravilāsā-mahākāvya and also not found in the portions of the dispatches sent by the secretaries of Jai Singh I as they were published by Jadunath Sarkar. At the present stage of research, the provenance of this material is unclear. The material is relevant because it highlights attitudes on the part of the Kachvāhā actors as they were confirmed by the ever-evolving tradition. When and under what circumstances narrative elements that may have been oral rather than based on official records entered the narrative of the Kachvāhās’ relationship with Aurangzeb remain open questions.
Separated from each other by about a hundred years, both Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa and Cand Kavi wrote in the interest of the state, the one pre-colonial, the other under indirect colonial rule.
Genealogy
Biological descent determined position in the Rajput hierarchy, thus keeping track of a family's genealogy was of crucial importance. Genealogies were constantly modified according to the needs of legitimation, and therefore many versions of these exist. There are two types of genealogies, the pīḍhiāvalīs and the vaṃśāvalīs, the former being the property of the Bhāṭs, who keep these for their jajmāns, while the latter belong to the families concerned.Footnote 12 Here we are concerned with Kachvāhā vaṃśāvalīs. These are written in Ḍhūṇḍhārī prose. The narrative of the regnal period of each Kachvāhā is followed in them by the genealogical lists relevant to the period. The genealogy of the lineages is thereby in a very literal sense predicated on the preceding narrative. Here, the version of the genealogy as it was edited by Ratnawat and collated by him with twenty-five other versions has been used.Footnote 13 All versions go back to a common stratum that may be dated around 1700,Footnote 14 the year of Jai Singh's II accession to the throne (VS 1756/ce 1700). The version of the genealogy edited by Rawat was concluded in 1848 ce and endorsed by Dīvān Rāmcandra Nāṭānī.Footnote 15
Other sources
Another source is the poetry of the Cāraṇs, composed in Ḍiṅgal, glorifying heroism and honour, and castigating breaches of these values. Recitals of this kind of poetry inculcated in Rajputs the culture of violence, and acted as instruments of character-building; Cāraṇs were thus powerful monitors of Rajput comportment.Footnote 16 Typically, this kind of poetry pitches hero against hero and describes their fights, their gallantry or ignominy. Following strict poetic conventions, it is not concerned with historical causes or the political benefits reaped by heroic feats. The names of actors are almost exchangeable. Cāraṇs of the twentieth century were inspired by the independence movement so that, if the conflict between Aurangzeb and Shivaji was made a topic during that period, orientalist and nationalist stereotypes which set Muslims against Hindus lingered, even if not openly expressed.Footnote 17 Cāraṇ poetry will be left out of consideration in this essay.
Circulation of the sources
The function of court poetry and genealogy is described in clichés of the ideal daily course in a king's life. An exemplar of this is contained in the Pratāp-prakās, a text written for the Kachvāhās in the late eighteenth century:Footnote 18
“When four ghaṛīs of the night are left (at about 4:30 am – mh), the bards (bhāṭ) recite the glory of the dynasty. Having listened to this, the king gets up at the brahmamuhūrt and contemplates the gurus. . .”
After this, the king undergoes a series of elaborate rituals and after worship and distribution of gifts goes for darśan to the Govindadeva temple situated in the premises of the palace of Jaipur.
“At this, the Rajas of the various regions, his brothers and sons, the holders of tāzīm, the officers of the guard, the nobles, pandits, court poets (kavīsvar), the bards (bhāṭ), the Cāraṇs stand in line paying obeisance and receiving his blessings. . .”
Bardic genealogists, nobility, the pandits, poets of ornate poetry, and Cāraṇs – each of them contributed to Kachvāhā self-perception, imagination, and memory. The result was a prism of views highlighting Kachvāhā culture. An accomplished Rajput had to have at his disposal registers of behaviour and emotions appropriate to the situation. He was socialised into the culture of violence, including violent religious cults; the culture of restrained courtly comportment; the diplomatic and bureaucratic culture; the culture of connoisseurship in literature and the arts, including various language-keys; and the culture of bhakti, devotional religion.
Did the sources to be considered in this article get a chance to fulfil their envisaged function? Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa's Īśvaravilāsā-mahākāvya was published in 1958, after a manuscript of it had been discovered in the 1930s by P. K. Gode in the manuscript library of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.Footnote 19 It is difficult to imagine that the poem was recited at the Jaipur court. Its ostensible hero, Īśvar Singh committed suicide in 1750 and was succeeded by his brother Mādho Singh, who had long contested Īśvar Singh's succession. Hardly would Mādho Singh's court have been sympathetic to a recital of Īśvar Singh's deeds.
As for Cand Kavi's poem, two manuscripts of it were known to exist in Jaipur around 1937. One of these disappeared so that the poem was edited on the basis of a single manuscript in 1991. Nothing is known of the life of the text since its completion in 1857. It must probably be regarded as an anachronism, for when it was completed, Ram Singh II had been ruler for six years. He had received a careful traditional and English education, supervised by British mentors which had by that time been long completed. In the year 1857, Ram Singh was deeply engaged in administrative reforms that would go a long way to make Jaipur a modern state. Maybe Cand's poem was admired, if at all, as a literary icon of Kachvāhā glory rather than ever fulfilling a practical function.
The genealogy used here is a text answering academic standards, but genealogies continue being kept by Rajput families and engage their attention. They keep being circulated, and Rajput genealogical lists have their own websites. Genealogies conjure up past glories, and when Rajput marriage alliances are forged they may be produced to confirm position in the Kachvāhā hierarchy. Today, genealogy also fulfils its function in the heritage industry: Rajput owners of heritage hotels are eager to display their genealogy and tap Kachvāhā glory. Genealogical nostalgia flavours reports on polo tournaments and other high society affairs.
Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa's Īśvaravilāsā-mahākāvya
All the sources reflect the ambivalent position of the Kachvāhā kings, who had to assert their position in the Mughal court system and as regional rulers. Their position in the Mughal machinery of governance also largely determined their position at home and among other Rajput rulers. It is therefore hardly surprising that Aurangzeb should loom large in the portrayal of the Kachvāhā kings. In Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa's poem, the Kachvāhā compass points, without quiver or wobble, towards him.
Mirza Raja Jai Singh's biography sets in with the war of succession to Shah Jahan's throne. Jai Singh's brilliant earlier career under Shah Jahan is skipped altogether. The poet focuses on the fateful years from 1659 to 1666. Jai Singh died in 1667. The last year of his life, not covered by the poet, was overshadowed by his military failure in Bijapur and his ensuing fall from favour with Aurangzeb. The key-note in the poet's appraisal of Jai Singh is the Kachvāhā’s privileged position with the emperor (1.32). In a single verse, the years from 1665 to 1666 take centre stage (1.33). Jai Singh's conquest of Shivaji at Purandar in 1665, Shivaji's submission and the treaty concluded with him brought Jai Singh to the zenith of his career as a noble at the Mughal court. He was awarded the highest rank attainable for a Rajput.Footnote 20 He persuaded Shivaji, who apprehended an attempt on his life, to present himself to the emperor in Agra, and pledged himself to his safety. It was hoped that Shivaji could be brought back into subservience to the emperor. Jai Singh implicated his son Ram Singh, the crown-prince, in his pledge. In Agra, Shivaji was entrusted to Ram Singh. When Shivaji finally presented himself to Aurangzeb, his rude violation of court etiquette alone meant sedition. Consequently, the emperor held him in severe detention. All the while Ram Singh was responsible for Shivaji and thereby spent three months between May and August 1666 with him. Ram Singh did not prevent his escape on 18 August of that year. According to that verse, it was Jai Singh who set free Shivaji so that his son Ram Singh appears only as the loyal son executing his father's command. It is ignored in the poem that Jai Singh was not in Agra when Shivaji escaped. KṛṣṇaBhaṭṭa does not even faintly hint at the possibility that father and son might not have acted in unison. Ram Singh is described as identifying with and executing his father's command, for a father's authority ideally determines the acts of his son. From the Rajput perspective articulated by Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa, Jai Singh and Ram Singh suffered the dilemma of Rajput honour and loyalty, which they owed to both the emperor and by their pledge to Shivaji (1.33 and 40). Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa calls Jai Singh the maker of Aurangzeb, the emperor (1.34). As if to dispel doubt in Kachvāhā loyalty to the emperor, the poet goes on pointing to Jai Singh's steadfastness by the side of Aurangzeb. Here he moves in reverse historical order, first mentioning the defeat of Aurangzeb's rival brother Shūjaʽ at the hand of Jai Singh (1659), and then Jai Singh's military feats at Balkh (1651), when he led a campaign together with Dara Shikoh, who acted in this rather haplessly as a military leader. Implicitly, the mentioning of the Balkh campaign suggests that Jai Singh was right in fighting against Dara Shikoh, the favourite son of Shah Jahan in the war of succession, and ultimately subduing him. Jai Singh's loyalty and military prowess are finally emphasized again in the last verse on him, where one or several the campaigns that he fought with Diler Khan (“Dalel Khān”) as a comrade in arms are remembered.Footnote 21 The poet probably refers to the war against Dara Shikoh in 1659 (1.38).
The report of Jai Singh's campaign against Dara Shikoh is laced with the mythology of Krishna. No mere poetic ornamentation, this is relevant in pointing to the treasured Vaiṣṇava identity professed by the Kachvāhās, one of their several identities, and serves the author well in demonising Dārā (1.36). The designation “mleccha” refers to Central Asian ethnic groups and is not the opposite of “Hindu”. The term “the Muslim ruler of Delhi” (1.38), designating the emperor, whose rule is upheld by the Hindu army of Jai Singh is a neutrally descriptive term, though it hints at Jai Singh's loyalty beyond and above religious or ethnic ascriptions.
Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa, then, puts emphasis on the dilemma of Kachvāhā honour and on the period when Jai Singh helped Aurangzeb establish himself and stabilise his position. This emphasis implies that he would have deserved the emperor's gratitude when, in fact, Aurangzeb turned vicious against Jai Singh's family, as corresponds also to the historical facts.Footnote 22 The passage on Jai Singh therefore turns into a prelude of the description of Aurangzeb as vicious (1.50).
Ram Singh is portrayed as the epitome of Rajput honour, a man who bears the brunt of loyalty in conflict. Icy as his campaigns in the north-east is his isolation marked by the years of campaigns and posts far from the Mughal court. His connoisseurship (1.42) is documented indeed by his personal library, which forms the major part of the Kachvāhā royal collection. Ram Singh is here shown as uniting in his character the martial and the aesthetic facets of an accomplished noble Rajput.Footnote 23 The estrangement from the emperor is expressed by Aurangzeb being as good as absent from the passage referring to Ram Singh.
It is to be assumed that Ram Singh sympathised with Shivaji, and that this was not kept a secret. Otherwise it would have been unthinkable that in 1682, two years after the death of Shivaji, his son and successor Shambhaji, fantasising about assassinating Aurangzeb, tried to implicate Ram Singh in a conspiracy. He saw himself as the defender of dharma under duress. Ram Singh was, however, not bent on rebellion, for Shambhaji muses:Footnote 24
“We have seen and heard so much about your valour and your zeal for religion. You at present possess the seven arms of kingship, so that if you muster courage and co-operate with us in annihilating the power of this Emperor, what may not be accomplished? When we ponder on this situation, we feel extremely surprised to find that you keep yourself so quiet and so unmindful of your religion”.
Ram Singh's way of resisting was subtler. The trauma of the Shivaji affair remained with him, but this made him the harbinger of the several strong Rajput reactions on the increasingly rigid Muslim stance of Aurangzeb that took place in the late 1660s. In the years between 1667 and 1671, Ram Singh, by issuing grants for the deity Govindadeva and its caretakers, enabled the custodians of this deity to transfer the icon from Vrindaban to Kachvāhā territory.Footnote 25 Govindadeva was the symbol of Kachvāhā regal power. This was Ram Singh's way of distancing the Kachvāhās from the emperor, and this act may have well represented the first traceable step towards creating a Hindu idiom of kingship in the Kachvāhā kingdom.
By the late eighteenth century, Ram Singh's defiance of Aurangzeb's authority is found firmly established in Kachvāhā imagination as a noble feat. In the Pratāp-prakāa,Footnote 26 set as a fictitious dialogue between the Peshva Baji Rao and the poem's author, Kṛṣnadatta, the latter acquaints the Peshva and his minister Nana Phaḍnavis with the genealogy of the Kachvāhās. As Ram Singh is mentioned, Kṛṣṇa datta explains:
“He liberated Shiva Raja from the emperor's custody, sent him to the south, saved his life, and was thereby instrumental for his royal investiture”. At this, the Peshva looked puzzled at Nana Phaḍnavis. Nana Phaḍnavis said, “That's right, such is this royal house”.
According to Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa, Aurangzeb took out his ill will against the Kachvāhas on Kisan Singh, the second son of Jai Singh who died in 1682 at the age of twenty-eight.Footnote 27 It is in this connection that the emperor is characterised as wicked (duṣṭa, 1.46). The incident of Kisan Singh's fight with a lion is depicted dramatically but the reader is not informed of the circumstances, which are dwelt on at some length in in Cand Kavi's poem and the genealogical account.Footnote 28 It seems that at the Kachvāhā court these were too well-known to require a comment. Irritated by the Kachvāhās as he was, the immediate cause of Aurangzeb's anger was the impudence of this young Rajput prince, characterised by the Kāyasth Bhīmsen, the author of Tārīḳh-e Dilkasha, in his memoirs of the years between 1658/59 and 1706/07, written after he retired from Mughal service in 1707:Footnote 29
“Kishan Singh had adopted the Mirzai way of life and looked like a Rajput in appearance and dress. He had virtually dived deep into the habit of drinking. The ignorance and impoliteness, which are common characteristics of Rajputs, were present in him on the top of being proud and vain. He developed bad habits and manners. He was murdered through the hand of an Afghan over the scuffle about a woman of easy virtue”.
Bisan Singh, finally, is depicted neutrally as the loyal servant of Aurangzeb.
Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa does not dwell at all on Savāī Jai Singh's relationship with Aurangzeb. From the first moment that this Maharaja appears in the poem (2.9), it is clear that here there is a king subject to none, a representative specifically of Hindu kingship.
“His (Bisan Singh's – MH) son Savāī Jai Singh performed deeds whose religious merit is praised,
Having arranged four fire sacrifices, he became samrāṭ,Footnote 30 he who completed a hundred and five horse sacrifices”.
Only in the summary of his great deeds, is the bare fact that Jai Singh II received the title “Savāī” mentioned (7.47). The ahistorical anecdote of the conferment of this title by Aurangzeb will be resumed below. Otherwise Aurangzeb is, as it were, eradicated from the portrayal given of Jai Singh II by Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa.
The Kachvāhā contemporaries of Aurangzeb in Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa's recital
Aurangzeb, the emperor, is called “the ruler of Delhi”. The names of the Kachvāhās appear in a sanskritised fashion.Footnote 31
(Mirza Raja Jai Singh)
“His (Raja Man Singh's – MH) son was King Jai Singh Varmā. Aurangzeb favourably noticed his deeds, and put aside his arrogance of being the incumbent of the throne, for he was deeply impressed with his abundant power (or: . . . of the throne, when he was on all sides tormented by the fire of his enemies). (1.32)
The valorous King Shiva, ruler over fortresses, was frightened by his power and took humbly refuge with him. Shiva met with the rage of the ruler of Delhi, who put him in a prison from where escape was virtually impossible. Yet he was set free again from his detention by dint of his (Jai Singh's) own power. (1.33)
On the battlefield, he candidly put Dara Shikoh in shackles with his strong arms and brought him forward. He quickly dispelled Shuja, against whom he was firmly opposed, and subdued him. The king was sovereign in his decision to act, or not to act, or to act differently. By the power of his own arms (or: . . . of his army) he made Aurangzeb alone the ruler of Delhi”. (1.34)
(1.35 omitted)
“From the region of Balkh, impregnable amidst snowy mountains and difficult because there are barbarians (mlecchas) all around, he relieved his army. In this he was like Krishna, who liberated the cows, calves, and cowherds of Braj with absolutely no harm being done to them when they found no escape from the mouth of the demon Agha. (1.36)
You wonder if he was another sun whose dazzling brightness destroyed the gloom of frustration of the learned, or if he had risen like a god on earth, thus falsifying the saying of Jaimini,Footnote 32 or if he was the full moon, with no inertia affecting him, illuminating the entire world, or if the victorious grandson of Man Singh had fulfilled all hopes on earth (or: . . . Man Singh had pervaded the world in all directions)”. (1.37)
(1.38 omitted)
“He was in forefront of the indomitable warrior Dalel Khan, and just by shaking his left armoured arm created the appearance of a whole range of rulers of Delhi. By the attacks of the Hindu army wielding daggers sharp as lightning, he brought about the regal fortune of Aurangzeb, the Muslim (yavana) ruler of Delhi, when this was trembling”. (1.38)
(Ram Singh)
“His son Ram Singh was blessed with the fortune of the whole world. He was a strong fire whose heat scorched the enemy's army (or: whose heat was scorching by its enormous power) as could be guessed from the black smoke represented by their swords. As his beauty radiated into the world, the god of love anticipated that his pride would be shattered and wisely made his lovely body an offering into the fire-pit of Śiva's wrath”. (1.39)
“With the passage of time even the snow mountain [Himalaya] and the gold mountain [Meru] will both tumble, in a quake also the sea will burst its border, but not so the steadfast Ram Singh. Shiva and Shumbha [Shambha, Shiva's son], for whom deliverance from the prison of the Muslim ruler seemed unlikely, he liberated quickly and charged himself with this oppressive burden”. (1.40)
“His travels through mountains and overland staggered as the load tumbled when horses reared and elephants run mad. Agitated in his mind, the king of Assam groaned in sorrow.Footnote 33 As in this life there seemed to be no other way for him, he turned to Varuṇa”.Footnote 34 (1.41)
“King Ram Singh promoted festivals featuring conversations on poetry and music recitals, he was fond of drama, light plays, farces, stories and narrative poems. He was the ganter frolicking in the milky ocean of elaborations on delightful puranic stories such as the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata”. (1.42)
“In conquering the eastern region he had excellent, resolute soldiers. In RaṅgamaṭṭīFootnote 35 they went on antelope hunt in the pleasure-groves of the enemy”. (1.43)
“He sweepingly took the enemy's country with his strong army. He delighted in war-horses eager for battle, and within the time it takes to saddle one, he conquered Kabul and other places of the adjacent countries of Balkh, Bukhara, and Afghanistan.Footnote 36 This was achieved by the violence with which the snow avalanches came down when the kettle-drums thundered”. (1.44)
(Kisan Singh)
“To this king a son was born, who was like the son of Pārvatī and Śiva. He was called Krishna Singh, and to the feet of Krishna his mind was attached”. (1.45)
“Already at a tender age, when that jewel of the royal family was with the army of the wicked ruler of Delhi, a wound had been inflicted on him by the deathly teeth of a tiger, whose mighty belly he ripped open. This emitted an unending stream of blood which diffused also into his eyes. Due to this a blood-red lustre added some gravity to his youthful charm”. (1.46)
“When Aurangzeb had zealously beaten his rivals on the battlefield and held the throne firmly occupied, some Satnāmīs made an uprising. In their overbearing theythought fit to take the path of disturbance. Armed themselves, no arms were used against them, for they behaved like moths flying into the flames of his splendour”. (1.47)
(1.48–49 omitted)
“The ruler of Delhi, always alert with crookedness, was suspicious out of fear, and schemed killing treacherously applying many ruses”. (1.50)
(Bisan Singh)
“Then in this Kali age the excellent King Viṣṇusiṃha out of mercy descended on the earth as another Viṣṇu, husband of dazzling Regal Fortune, and appropriately took his residence in the Mathura region of Braj”. (2.1)
“He was reputed for crushing by his power enemies even from a distance. With the permission of Aurangzeb, the Muslim ruler, who was at that time in the south, he eradicated the enemies from the region of Mathura, the abode of the husband of Śrī, where others, who enjoyed the great fortune of having the rank of five thousand, had suffered defeat”. (2.2)
Cand's poem and the Kachvāhā genealogy
Cand Kavi's Kūrma-vilās and the Kachvāhā genealogy share a number of features that set them off from the Sanskrit poem of Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa. Both are written in the vernacular and use rhetoric means typical of Rajasthani literature. Characters hold inner monologues, dialogue is widely recorded, motives guiding the behaviour of actors are named as either intrinsic or inspired by divine agency (though not in the passages under review), and ritually powerful representatives of the pre-Rajput territorial rulers are called upon for intercession. The last-mentioned element is of great importance, for to legitimate themselves Rajput dynasties depend on deities and have to integrate former ruling groups. Heroes breach norms of courtly comportment, they are depicted as governed by emotions. That this would have been sanctioned at court — Shivaji's breach of norms in the presence of the emperor can serve as an example — is ignored. In Rajputs, violent emotions are usually triggered when Rajput honour is at stake. These emotions intrude, as it were, into the public sphere. In this, the style of both Cand's poem and the genealogy resembles the Rajasthani vāt and khyāt. The vāt is a popular narrative genre often combined with historical narrative and was traditionally transmitted by Cāraṇs. At the basis of khyāts are historical records and genealogies, oral and written sources. They were edited by members of the scribal elite.Footnote 37
Though they share those features, the texts also differ. Cand's poem is elaborate in heaping attributes on the characters, while the genealogy is phrased in unembellished prose. However, because they share regional literary features and the mid-nineteenth century as time when they were concluded, both texts are treated in the same section and in the sequence of Kachvāhā regnal periods.
Jai Singh I
The genealogy starts recording the birth of Mirza Raja Jai Singh and his accession to the throne, and skips Jai Singh's earlier career to proceed directly to the contest for succession to the Mughal throne. The passage quoted below sets in at the time when Jasvant Singh of Marwar led an army fighting on the side of Dara Shikoh and was defeated by the party of Aurangzeb and prince Murad in April 1658. Jai Singh is portrayed as an unflinching supporter of Aurangzeb and advising him to get rid of his brother Murad. Jai Singh also supports Aurangzeb in his fight against Dārā, which seems logical in consideration of the poor military performance Dārā had given in the previous years and the hostility Dārā had developed against Jaī Singh. Dārā was supported by his father and had on his side Jasvant Singh, the king of Marwar, Jaipur's inveterate rival.Footnote 38 The genealogy alleges that at this crucial point in time Jai Singh had conferred upon him the title “Mīrzā”. In reality, he had received this title from Shah Jahan as early as 1639. This piece of factually wrong information underscores, however, the great service done to Aurangzeb by Jai Singh at that time.Footnote 39
“There occurred a fight between Aurangzeb and Jasvant Singhjī on the battlefield of Ujjain. Aurangzeb won and went to Delhi, and there was a fight between Dara Shikoh and him. Dara Shikoh fled to Thatta, and Aurangzeb entered Agra. He imprisoned the emperor, the command of whom stopped being followed. Then he went to Delhi. Meanwhile, H. H. had arrived in Akbarabad and camped there. Aurangzeb called on him. H. H. wrote to him, “Two swords in one sheath won't cut”. Then Aurangzeb took Murad Bakht prisoner, and again Aurangzeb called him. H. H. went to Delhi and met Aurangzeb. At this Aurangzeb was very pleased and conferred on him the title “Mīrzā” and gave him an elephant and a sir-o-pā[a full set of a robe of honour]. Then, after some time, he said to H. H., “Dara Shikoh is in Thatta. Please arrest him and bring him here”. H. H. agreed and with his army fought against Dara Shikoh and seized him”.
The passage illustrates what has been said about the style of the two vernacular sources. It is dramatic in its swift sequence of events, the acting characters speak directly, also using proverbial expression, namely, “two swords in one sheath” for two rivals blockading one another.
Cand's emphasis is on the consequences the war of succession might have for Jai Singh's own rule. Jai Singh is not bogged down by a conflict of loyalty, but rather relieved from this by divine agency. His concern for his country is made amply clear by the intervention of the god Bhairav, to whom a Gūjar refers him. The Gūjars are a group mainly of herdsmen, who were attached to the Kachvāhās in a particularly intimate way. The Kachvāhā male royalty used to establish fictive kinship with them through the sons of their Gūjar wet-nurses. These sons were classified as their foster-brothers (dhāībhāī, dhābhāī) and were trusted, often high-ranking retainers. That territorial power and access to Bhairav, typically worshipped by the Gūjars, is now mobilised by the service of one of their community. Jai Singh's siding with Aurangzeb thereby is revealed as divinely ordained. He is but the executor of Bhairav's will so that the moral dilemma is resolved. This gives Jai Singh the confidence to boldly accost the emperor. The intercession of a Nāth to ward off the rivals of Dārā, that is, through supernatural yogic power, gestures towards Marwar. While here NāthYogīs were widely spread, their enormous political influence at court is a matter of the nineteenth century, when under Man Singh they were at the helm of state affairs and, with resolute British support, were only removed at the death of that king in 1843.Footnote 40 Cand's report turns to the sub-imperial, regional, the culturally familiar, and would thereby have appealed to the envisaged Rajput audience. Reporting that in the year VS 1703, Shah Jahan decided that Dārā should become his successor, Cand goes on saying:Footnote 41
Jai Singh was troubled, “Who knows who will become emperor?
What will happen to my realm? There are a number of lingering issues.” (57)
The king was so much pre-occupied by this worry that he could not think.
“Who will understand? Whom can I tell this? I feel so helpless!” (58)
Two months passed in this state of worry.
Then a Gujjar (Gūjar) came before him and said, “This issue must be brought before Bhairū. (59)
Go and make an offering to him, and put your question before him”.
“So they went at midnight to the lovely lake. (60)
There was one retainer, the Gujjar, and he himself, sword in hand.
Uttering mantras to invoke Bhairū, they were sitting in the deserted forest. (61)
Black in colour, with dishevelled hair hanging down to his shoulders,
In his hands a sand clock and a trident, he shouted at them threateningly, full of anger.
The Gujjar took to his heels, the retainer shut his eyes,
Holding his offerings, the king stood motionless, with only that one concern in his mind.
Bhairū was given ten pots of liquor and ate meat and cooked wheat,
And in due course of time he spoke: ‘King, recall what was on your mind!’
Putting his hands reverentially together and bowing his head, the king said: ‘I wish to know
Who of his four sons shall succeed the emperor’.
‘Well, King, Aurangzeb looks the most brilliant,
This is the son who shall be emperor. Mind you, this is my firm opinion’. (64)
. . .
After a while, he [Jai Singh] went to Delhi,
With all his kinsmen and nobles, full of energy.
Aurang Shāh had written to him that Shah Jahan had become confused in his mind.
Keeping his army with him and in no doubt about who of the princes would be eligible,
He met Shah Jahan and said to him: ‘Take the right decision,
You must not give your kingdom to a weakling; don't let this happen’. (67)
He [Shah Jahan] made the rule over to Dara Shikoh, thereby ignoring Jai Singh's advice.
A Nāth was sent from Jodhpur to confront the opponents”. (68)
Ram Singh
The episode of Shivaji's encounter with Aurangzeb and the dire consequences of this for the Kachvāhās are presented by the genealogy as follows. Shivaji confronts Jai Singh on the battlefield, he succumbs and negotiations for a treaty set in. In these, the main issue is the fortresses in the hold of Shivaji, which he is forced to abandon to the Mughals. Shivaji fears for his life, for Jai Singh is determined to bring him before the emperor, whether dead or alive. Shivaji consults his mother, who prompts him to seek the protection of Jai Singh. The passage tallies by and large with accepted accounts of how the conflict built up. It sees Ram Singh responsible for Shivaji's escape, and Ram Singh as acting on his father's behest. The aggressive attitude of the emperor is expressed in the brief dialogue between Aurangzeb and Ram Singh in which Aurangzeb threatens to be the midwife (dāī) extricating Shivaji forcefully from the lap of Jai Singh, literally, his “womb” (peṭ). Here, too, a highly affective style is honed to Rajput emotions.Footnote 42
“ShivaFootnote 43 Raja went to meet H. H. and gave him the keys of all the forts as nazr.Footnote 44 He stood before him humbly putting his hands together. H. H. said, ‘Your estates are granted to you; sit down!’ bowed, took the keys and sat down. Then H. H. said, ‘Go to Delhi and present yourself to the emperor!’ Shiva replied, ‘I won't leave this place, I will stay in the presence of Your Majesty’. H. H. said, ‘You need not be afraid. Prince Ram Singh is there; he will bring you before the emperor and send you back’. So Shiva Raja set out, reached Delhi and met Ram Singh. The prince obtained permission and presented Shiva Raja to the emperor. Later, the emperor said to the prince, ‘He is entrusted to you. If he asks to, he may be admitted to the Presence’. The prince took him to the camp. Then he heard that the emperor's policy had changed and noticed that the camp was surrounded by troops. So he put Shiva in a basket suspended by strings from a pole, set him free, and dispatched him on the mail road. The Maharaja [Jai Singh] was sent somewhere to the south. The emperor learnt in due course that Shiva had reached the south. He immediately called the prince, ‘Bring me Shiva!’ The prince replied, ‘But Shiva is in the Maharaja's lap’. The emperor replied, ‘So Aurangzeb will be the midwife’. This news the prince conveyed to the Maharaja”.
For its bare facts, the account given by Cand in his Kūrma-vilāsa roughly corresponds to what eyewitnesses of the episode reported. Cand however presents Ram Singh as openly challenging the emperor. This enhances the impression of the prince's steadfastness in the face of the awe-inspiring imperial presence. Both the genealogy and Cand, then, draw the image of the Kachvāhā scion pledging his life for one who relies on his protection and thereby following the norms of Rajput comportment. Ram Singh does not budge, while the irate Aurangzeb is fickly manoeuvring. The fact that the emperor reduced Ram Singh's rank by one thousand and forbade him from attending court for the duration of seven months is here interpreted as a voluntary rejection of honours and possessions worthy of a Kachvāhā prince. Cand uses stylistic devices absent from the genealogy. Whereas in the genealogy the narration is relatively bare, though the motives and emotions of actors are expressed in direct speech, Cand's style is more ornate. Adorned by the respective attributes, Aurangzeb's blazing anger is contrasted with Ram Singh's undeterred abidance by his pledge.Footnote 45
Deep wrath arose in the emperor,
At this moment he could not say anything to the Kachvāhā (Ram Singh),
Implacable anger flared up in him so that his face turned red,
Ram Singh saw that he was up to murder and took his leave.
He took Shiva Raja with him to the camp,
Locked it up and in this way fuelled the emperor's anger.
Not heeding the etiquette and setting all doubts aside, the Kūrma (Ram Singh)
Took Shiva with him, defying the command. (38)
He gave up all — his country, possessions, jāgīrs.
As the emperor heard of this, he was enraged,
It was as if ghee had been poured into a blazing fire. (38)
The emperor ordered a thousand cavalry
To surround the Kachvāhā so that Shiva could not flee. (39)
The high-minded prince wrote to him:
‘I will not allow Shivaji to be caught, you may rather kill me’. (40)
Ram Singh wrote to him, ‘Shiva is under my protection,
If you wish, take him; I have pledged my life for him’. (41)
Kisan Singh
As mentioned before, Kisan Singh is not portrayed favourably in Bhīmsen's memoirs.Footnote 46 Kṛṣṇa Bhaṭṭa mentions Kisan Singh's fight with a lion or tiger in a way that suggests that it was Kachvāhā household lore and hence striking the uninformed modern reader as a little opaque. Bhaṭṭa concludes his account of Kisan Singh with an allusion to Aurangzeb's sinister strategems (1.46 and 50, respectively). Both the genealogy and Cand dwell on Aurangzeb's cruelty and Kisan Singh's feat with great gusto, and from Cand's poem we also learn that the crucial episode took place in 1678, which was in the regnal period of his father Ram Singh.
According to the genealogy, Ram Singh does not acquiesce to the cruel treatment of his son by the emperor. He makes it clear that in that episode the emperor overstepped a boundary in his dealings with the Kachvāhās, and has the boldness to remind him of the service the Kachvāhās did him in the war of succession.
The genealogy also reports as a fact the rumour that Kīrat Singh, another son of Jai Singh I, poisoned his father on the instigation of Aurangzeb. This allegation is probably false.Footnote 47 That it took roots in Kachvāhā memory is however not quite surprising. Jai Singh's fall from imperial favour in the last year of his life had given rise to great anxiety in the royal household. The general apprehension is well expressed by Bhīmsen, who writes about Jai Singh's death “because of certain ailments he died there [in Burhanpur]”.Footnote 48 Moreover, Bhīmsen reports the telling reaction of Udairāj Munśī, the secretary and confidant of Jai Singh:Footnote 49
“After the death of the Raja, Udairaj thought that the Rajputs might play mischief on his life by suspecting him for the death of the Raja. He instantly went to Daud Khan, the Subahdar of Burhanpur, and embraced the religion of Islam”.
The following passage in the genealogy follows immediately after the passage on Ram Singh quoted above.Footnote 50
“Then the emperor went for lion hunt. The prince was with him. They were face-to-face with a lion. The emperor commanded the prince to kill it. So he went, armed with shield and sword. The emperor said, ‘No weapons here!’ So he gave his sword to a retainer and precipitated himself into the fight with the lion. Striking out he challenged the tiger with battle-cries. Lunging a tilt, he killed it by battering it with the shield. After this, the prince arrived in Delhi and wrote a report of this to H. H., who on reading it convoked a court assembly. He called the news-reporter and said, ‘Write to the emperor where I am and that what he did to my son was not right’. He talked his mind, ‘Shah Jahan had sons besides you. You were not the only one’. And he sent his sympathies to the prince. When the gist of this was brought to the notice of the emperor, he gave the prince an elephant and a sir-o-pā to placate him and took pains to comfort him. Moreover, H. H. worried him. He summoned him to Delhi. So H. H. set out. As the emperor got news of this, he said to Kīrat Singh, a younger one of the princes, ‘What has been given to H. H., could be yours. The rule over Āmer might be given to you’. So in his greed, Kīrat Singh conspired with TejsīNāī, who was appointed in H. H.’s kitchen, and when H. H. had his camp in Burhanpur, he poisoned him”.
Cand tells the episode with a variant:Footnote 51 In the year VS 1735/ce 1678, Kisan Singh was serving at Ram Singh's campaign to Kabul. After Ram Singh's victory, Kisan Singh was sent home via Delhi. The emperor was pleased at his performance, and Kisan Singh was in high spirits. The conversation got to the topic of hunting. The prince talked big about a really brave lion hunter: No weapons other than the double-bladed dagger (kaṭār). This angered the emperor. He put Kisan Singh to test. He ordered an enclosure to be made and outside it an observation platform for himself. In the enclosure, Kisan Singh was to confront a lion, whom he hit with his shield on the head and ripped up with his dagger. The passage underscores the superior Rajput valour by mentioning that Kisan Singh used his double-bladed dagger, which is the typical weapon of a Rajput nobleman that he carries tucked in his sash. Though also Mughal nobles other than Rajputs wore this kind of dagger, for Rajputs it epitomised their royal authority, and its emblem certified royal deeds.
As for Bisan Singh, neither the geneaology nor the Kūrma-vilās have to relate anything conspicuous.
Jai Singh II
Against the silence of Kṛṣṇa Kavi on Savāī Jai Singh's relationship with Aurangzeb —as good as a damnation memoriae —, both the genealogy and Cand dwell on an incident in the year 1696 which was actually reported to king Bisan Singh in April of that year.Footnote 52 This became part of Rajput memory beyond the Kachvāhā kingdom.Footnote 53 The genealogy says:Footnote 54
“[In the year VS 1757 (ce 1700, sic!),] he appeared before the emperor. The emperor took H. H. by both his hands, as one does with children, and asked him, ‘How strong are you?’ H. H. replied, ‘According to custom, a husband, as he takes charge of a woman, takes her by only one hand.Footnote 55 Your Imperial Presence, however, have taken me by both hands. Therefore my strength is boundless’. At this the emperor was very pleased and said, ‘He is so young, and yet he talks so smart’. And he conferred the title “Savāī” on him. And to NawabAsad KhanFootnote 56 he said, ‘One day this boy will bring misfortune to the emperor’”.
As an anecdote this episode must have entered the genealogy after the period of Aurangzeb when the Mughal empire was disintegrating. The wrong date attributed to the incident suggests that it was picked up from hearsay evidence. As for Cand, he gives basically the same version of the story as the genealogy, with the exception that he does quite correctly not connect the conferment of the title Savāī with this incident. The title was officially conferred on Jai Singh II indeed as late as 1713.Footnote 57
Conclusions
The literary sources discussed were composed to eulogise, and account for the genealogy of, the Kachvāhās. In these Aurangzeb represents, as it were, the touchstone of Kachvāhā ethos. Two of the sources, the Kachvāhā genealogy in its conclusive version and Cand's Kūrma-vilās, are close in time and tenor to James Tod's statements on the topic:Footnote 58
“Jey Sing, the Mirza Raja,. . . performed great services to the empire during the reign of Aurangzéb, who bestowed upon him the munsab of six thousand. He made prisoner the celebrated Sévaji, whom he conveyed to court, and afterwards, on finding that his pledge of safety was likely to be broken, was accessory to his liberation. But this instance of magnanimity was more than counterbalanced by his treachery to Dara, in the war of succession, which crushed the hopes of that brave prince. These acts, and their consequences, produced an unconquerable haughtiness of demeanour, which determined the tyrannical Aurangzéb to destroy him. . . . he [Aurangzeb] had recourse to the same diabolic expedient which ruined Marwar, of making a son the assassin of his father. He promised the succession to the gadí of Ambér to Keerut Sing, younger son of the Raja, to the prejudice of his elder brother Ram Sing, if he affected the horrid deed. The wretch having perpetrated the crime by mixing poison in his father's opium, returned to claim the investiture: but the king only gave him the district of Kamah. . .”
This shows that by the earlier part of the nineteenth century the negative image of Aurangzeb had gained widest currency.
Aurangzeb as a person is characterised fairly unanimously in these sources as imbalanced, given to wrath and vicious. Not once in the above-quoted sources, however, is the religious stance of the emperor made a topic. The term yavana, with its inherent potential of denouncing Muslims, is used as a purely descriptive term. An exception to this is the hostile turn that the use of the word takes in a frontier situation. This was the case when the Mughal army invaded Kachvāhā territory in 1708, the year after Aurangzeb's death. In the Rāmavilāsa-kāvya (1709), Viśvanātha describes the Kachvāhā encounter with the Mughal troops in a Hindu eschatological fashion. The Rāma referred to in the title of the poem is Jai Singh II, and the Mughal troops are the forces of evil, described in the traditional topoiof Sanskrit literature. Rāma alias Jai Singh II saves cows from the Cāṇḍālas (1.33), kills the Turuṣka-demons inhabiting Laṅkā (1.42), mutilates and chops to pieces the long-bearded Yavanas (1.46).
The Rāmavilāsa-kāvya and the Īśvaravilāsa-mahākāvya (before Īśvar Singh's death in 1750) are relevant for the question how far the religious distinction between the Kachvāhās and the Mughals, though not made a topic in the texts, was momentous for the ideological stance Kachvāhā political thought was to take. It has been documented that in the earlier part of the eighteenth century Kachvāhā regal identity was formulated in explicit Hindu terms and argued that this development was partly inspired by the Maratha model.Footnote 59 In the process, Aurangzeb was hardly specifically referred to. The Hindu idiom of governance, however, set in during his regnal period. This idiom found also expression in Ram Singh's initiative to withdraw a religious symbol of Kachvāhā kingship from Vrindaban to Kachvāhā territory. The rhetoric of Rajput kingship qua Hindu kingship was not solely directed against the weakened successive emperors, but also addressed other Rajput rulers, with whom the Kachvāhās vied for supremacy.
The authority of the Mughal emperor continued looming large in the struggle for superiority in status among the regional rulers. Regardless of the Hindu ideological vehicle of his aspirations to regional independence, Jai Singh II continued defining his status by the rank he took in the corps of Mughal nobility. Prestations (naẓr) made by him to the emperor and robes of honour and related gifts received by him from his hand were markers of this and meticulously recorded. This is amply reflected in Cand's Kūrma-vilās. Cand mentions, for example, the full set of a robe of honour, the jewel-studded turban ornament and the turban plume Bahādur Shāh (1707-1712) gave to him in the year before his death in recognition of Jai Singh's express confirmation of his servitude to him. The Kachvāhā Hindu restoration was enforced without explicitly defying the authority of the emperor. The soaring emergence of a Hindu political ideology, a result of the tensions of the Aurangzeb era, led to explicitly addressing the otherness of Muslims in terms of religion.
The literature reviewed in this essay is pertinent to the evolution of concepts of Hindu governance as they had become manifest from the early eighteenth century. The works were commissioned by the ruling Kachvāhā elite to underpin Kachvāhā kingship and, for the genealogy and Cand's Kūrma-vilās, define membership and rank within the continuously negotiated system of sub-clans constituting the Kachvāhā brotherhood of nobles. The sources reviewed speak in the interest of the Kachvāha royal elite. Further research would be required to gain an adequate understanding of the impact of their ideology on the interaction between ordinary Hindus and Muslims in the Kachvāhā realm.
