Note 187 — The Thirteenth New Year’s Feast

The particulars of this are that when Rāja Bikramājīt with the victorious army arrived in that region, the ill-fated Sūraj Mal desired to delay him for some days by trickery and babblement, but the aforesaid knew the real state of the case and did not pay attention to his words, but advanced with the foot of valour. That abandoned one, letting fall from his hand the thread of plan, neither planted the foot of intrepidity firmly for battle nor had the courage to defend the fort. After a slight struggle, and when many of his people had been slaughtered, he took to flight, and the forts of Mau187 and Mahrī (?), which were the chief reliance of that ill-fated man, were both taken without difficulty. A country which he had held by hereditary right from his fathers was trodden under foot by the victorious troops, and he became a wanderer and a vagabond. He retired to the ravines of the hills, and cast the dust of ruin and contempt on the head of his Fortune. Rāja Bikramājīt, leaving his country behind, hastened in pursuit of him with the victorious army. When the state of affairs reached the royal ears, in reward for this becoming service I ordered drums for the Raja, and a fateful farman was issued from the Sovereign of Wrath that they should overthrow from their foundation the fort and buildings that had been erected by Sūraj Mal’s father and himself, and leave not a trace of them on the face of the earth. A strange thing is that the unfortunate Sūraj Mal had a brother called Jagat Singh. When I promoted Sūraj Mal to the title of Raja, and made him an Amir, and gave him dominion, etc., without a partner or sharer, I, in order to please him, gave a small mansab to Jagat Singh, who did not get on well with him, and sent him to Bengal. This wretched one was passing his days in a poor condition far from his home, in contempt, and to the delight of his enemies, and waiting for some hidden aid, until by his good fortune this affair took place, and that unblessed one struck an axe on his own foot. Summoning Jagat Singh in all haste to Court, I honoured him with the title of Raja and the mansab of 1,000 personal and 500 horse, and bestowed 20,000 darbs188 on him out of the public treasury for his expenses. Giving him a jewelled khapwa, a robe of honour, a horse, and an elephant, I sent him to Rāja Bikramājīt, and issued a farman that if the aforesaid, by the guidance of a good destiny, should perform laudable service, and display loyalty, that country should be given over into his hand.189