Note 11 — Panwār Rājpūt

or, “Where the Panwār is there is Dhār, and Dhār is where the Panwār is; without the Panwārs Dhār cannot stand, nor the Panwārs without Dhār.” It is related that in consequence of one of his merchants having been held to ransom by the ruler of Dhār, the Bhatti Rāja of Jaisalmer made a vow to subdue the town. But as he found the undertaking too great for him, in order to fulfil his vow he had a model of the city made in clay and was about to break it up. But there were Panwārs in his army, and they stood out to defend their mock capital, repeating as their reason the above lines; and in resisting the Rāja were cut to pieces to the number of a hundred and twenty.11 There is little reason to doubt that the incident, if historical, was produced by the belief in sympathetic magic; the Panwārs really thought that by destroying its image the Raja could effect injury to the capital itself,12 just as many primitive races believe that if they make a doll as a model of an enemy and stick pins into or otherwise injure it, the man himself is similarly affected. A kindred belief prevails concerning certain mythical old kings of the Golden Age of India, of whom it is said that to destroy their opponents all they had to do was to collect a bundle of juāri stalks and cut off the heads, when the heads of their enemies flew off in unison.