Mewar: The Refugee Queen

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This page is an extract from ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES OF RAJASTHAN OR THE CENTRAL AND WESTERN RAJPUT STATES OF INDIA By LIEUT.-COL. JAMES TOD Late Political Agent to the Western Rajput States Edited with an Introduction and Notes by WILLIAM CROOKE, CIE. Hon. D.Sc. Oxon., B.A., F.R.A.l. Late of the Indian Civil Service In Three Volumes VOL. IV: ANNALS OF MEWAR [The Annals were completed in 1829] HUMPHREY MILFORD Oxford University Press London Edinburgh Glasgow New York Toronto Melbourne Bombay 1920 [The edition scanned]

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The Refugee Queen

Of the prince's family, the queen Pushpavati alone escaped the sack of Valabhi, as well as the funeral pyre, upon which, on the death of Siladitya, his other wives were sacrificed. She was a daughter of the Pramara prince of Chan dravati [221], and had visited the shrine of the universal mother, Amba-Bhavani, in her native land, to deposit upon the altar of the goddess a votive offering consequent to her expectation of offspring. She was on her return, when the intelligence arrived which blasted all her future hopes, by depriving her of her lord, and robbing him, whom the goddess had just granted to her prayers, of a crown. Excessive grief closed her pilgrimage. Taking refuge in a cave in the mountains of Malia, she was de livered of a son. Having confided the infant to a Brahmani of Birnagar named Kamlavati, enjoining her to educate the young prince as a Brahman, but to marry him to a Rajputni,^ she

1 The Baldan, or sacrifice of the bull to Balnath, is on record, though now discontinued amongst the Hindus. [Baldan = balidana, ' a general offering to the gods.']

2 Pinkerton, who is most happy to strengthen his aversion for the Celt, seizes on a passage in Strabo, who describes him as having recourse to the same mode of purification as the Guebre. Unconscious that it may have had a religious origin, he adduces it as a strong proof of the uncleanliness of their habits.

3 [This corroborates Bhandarkar's theory that the Guhilots sprang from Nagar Brahmans.] mounted the funeral pile to join her lord. Kamlavati, the daughter of the priest of the temple, was herself a mother, and she performed the tender offices of one to the orphan prince, whom she designated Goha, or ' cave-born.' ^ The child was a source of perpetual uneasiness to its protectors : he associated with Rajput children, killing birds, hunting wild animals, and at the age of eleven was totally unmanageable : to use the words of the legend, " How should they hide the ray of the sun ? "