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AUGUST, 1873.]
STORY OF RÅNI PINGLÅ.
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STORY OF RÂNÎ PINGLA. BY MAJOR JOHN W. WATSON, ACTING POLITICAL SUPERINTENDENT, PAHLANPUR. TVE last sovereign of Chandravati of the Par- put the question to it; shonld your hus
1 mår dynasty was named Hûn. One day band be alive, water will ooze out of its leaves ; Raja Hûn went to the forest to hunt, and there but if he be dead the leaves will wither and fall was a native Pârdhi also lying in wait for game. off.” Räni Pinglê received the seed with grati. Shortly after a black cobra bit the Pårdhi, who tude, and sowed it in her yard.
ied immediately from the effects of the bite. A few months after this, Raja Hôn left ChanThe Raja however sat still watching what drâvati to subdue a refractory Mehyâsi village, might happen. After a little while, the wife and determined to send from thence a false of the Pårdhi came in search of her husband, intimation of his death to the Râni to test her and found him thus lying dead. She wept and virtue as a sati. He desired his Sirdárs to be bewailed him much, then collecting wood made the medium of this communication, but they all a pile to barn the body: when the corpse was indignantly refused, saying that it would be a being burned she cut off pieces of her own
black deed. At last a Rabari agreed to carry the flesh and threw them on the pile; finally she tidings, and the King gave him his own turban climbed on the pile and embracing her husband's to deliver to the Queen, desiring him to tell her corpse became a sati. The King witnessed all at the last that the news was false. The Rabari this, and was struck with the devotion of the then mounted his camel and taking the king's woman, and on his return home related the cir- turban went to Chandravati. At this time Rânî cumstance to his Queen, whose name was Ráni Pinglê and her maidens were in a balcony of Pingla, the daughter of Raja Somachandra, and the palace; the Queen saw the Rabâri afar off said to her that he had never seen or heard and intuitively felt that her death was near. of a sati like the Pårdhi's wife. Råní Pinglâ She said to her maidens, "The day of my death replied that the woman hardly deserved to be | has come." Her maidens endeavoured to comcalled a sati, that she was simply a surmi, or a fort her, but, she pointed to the camel now apbrave or desperate character, who had destroy- proaching nearer and nearer, and said, “There ed herself on the spur of the moment, and that is the messenger of the fatal tidings." Just a real sati was one who, on hearing even of then the Rabâri arrived, and began to call her husband's death, would bathe, put his tur- out, "Alas! Alas! Raja Hän is slain!" He ban on her bosom, and heave a sigh which then handed over the King's tarban to one would end in instant death, the soul escaping of the attendants for delivery to Rani Pinglê, through an aperture caused by the bursting of
to whom it was at once conveyed. Rani the skull. The RÂja rejoined that if there were Pinglå wept bitterly, she then bathed and any true satt in the world, it must be Råni approached the A880 Pål plant and asked Pingla herself. From this the Queen consider- it whether her husband were alive or dead : ed within herself that the King might one day
water oozed out of the leaves, thereby satistest her virtue as & sati. Some time after this fying her that Raja Hûn was alive. She occurrence, her spiritual preceptor, Guru Data. however thought thus within herself: If I do triya, paid her a visit. Rani Pinglâ implored
not die, I shall lose the love of my husband, him, saying, "Reverend Sir, give me such a
whereas if I become a sati, 1 small not only reign thing that by virtue of it I may be enabled
with him in Svarga, but shall re-united to him to know of the death of my husband, even in my next birth on the earth; further, were though it should happen far away from Chan
I not to die, I should shame my father, Raja dravati." The Guru gave her a seed of the Somachandra. She then addressed the Asso Pal Asso Pål tree, and said, "Sow that in your
tree thuschaok (yard), and in a short time it will grow
आसुप नदीयंत मरj, into a plant. Whenever you wish to ascertain
वणमुभा केम लाभत प्रेमलं, whether your husband be dead or alive, you
अवसान आये नव मरू, should bathe, and then, approaching the plant,
तो लाजे राजा सोमचंदरू.
