Note 122 — The Twelfth New Year’s Feast after my auspicious accession.

At this stage news came that Mān Singh Sewṛā had surrendered his soul to the lords of hell. The account of this in brief is that the Sewras122 are a tribe of infidel Hindus who always go with their head and feet bare. One set of them root out their hair, their beards, and moustaches, while another set shave them. They do not wear sewn garments, and their central principle is that no living creature should be injured. The Banyans regard them as their pīrs and teachers, and even worship them. There are two sects of Sewras, one called Patā (Tapā) and the other Kanthal (Kartal). Mān Singh was the head of the latter, and Bāl Chand the head of the Patās.123 Both of them used to attend upon H.M. Akbar. When he died and K͟husrau fled and I pursued him, Rāy Singh Bhurṭiyā, zamindar of Bikanir, who had been made an Amīr by Akbar’s kindness, asked Mān Singh what would be the duration of my reign and the chances of my success. That black-tongued fellow, who pretended to be skilled in astrology and the extraction of judgments, said to him that my reign would, at most, last for two years. The doting old idiot (Rāy Singh) relied upon this, and went off without leave to his home. Afterwards, when the glorious God chose out this suppliant and I returned victorious to the capital, he came, ashamed and downcast, to Court. What happened to him in the end has been told in its proper place.124 In fine, Mān Singh, in the course of three or four months, was struck with leprosy (juẕām), and his limbs fell off him till he was in such a state that death was by many degrees preferable to life. He was living at Bikanir, and now I remembered him and sent for him. On the road he, out of excessive fear, took poison, and surrendered his soul to the lords of hell. So long as the intentions of this suppliant at God’s courts are just and right, it is sure that whoever devises evil against me will receive retribution according to his merits.