Indian Antiquary Vol 50

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 73

FEB., 1921)
BOOK-NOTICE
63
It was the Spanish ulcer which ruined me.' The of military service, hitherto invariably successful Decoan uleor ruined Aurangzib." But the paral. Superseded by his wrathful master, the now old 1el is closer than thin, as I read history. The man "bent his way to Northern India in humi. gigantic nature of the success in both instances ligtion and disappointment. His brilliant career hardened characteristics, and both Conquerors which had been passed under two Emperors, and found it more and more impossible to maintain in which he had won laurels from Qandahar to the grandeur of their conquests. Both were on Mungir and Balkh to Maharashtra, was clouded the defensive from the day of the acme of their by a single failure at its close. Not a pice of the success. Napoleon's decline in reality dates from krore of Rupees of his own money that he had the hour of his being crowned as Emperor, just spent in the Bijapur war would be repaid by his as Aurangzib's decline must be reckoned from master. Broken-hearted with disgrace and dis. the day he finally defeated the Marathas. And appointment, and labouring under disease and old this though both lived to achieve many more age, Jai Singh sank in death on reaching Burhan. "* victories."
pur, on 2nd July 1667. Like Walsingham of EliMr. Sarkar pommences this volume with two
zabeth's Court, he died a bankrupt after serving illuminating chapters on the Keynote of Deccan
too faithfully an exacting but thankless master." History in the Soventeeth Century and the Rise
Another instance out of very many in many lands of the Maratha Power, and I must say that he has
of the soldier sacrificed to the politician. The put the situation which arose out of the break up
soldier suffers for his mistakes : not so his political
master for his. "Put not your trust in princes." of the Bahmani Kingdom into the five Muham
Mr. Sarkar tells the story very well, a indood he madan powers of the Deccan, and also the posi
poor does all that he has to tell. tion of the petty Maratha chiefs that preceded Shivaji in a clear and convincing manner, which
R. C. TEMPLE. must always make this volume worth consulting by those who would grasp the very complicatede A GUIDE TO THE OLD OBSERVAPORIES AT DMLHI, stories of both Muhammadan and Hindu of that JAIPUR, UJJAIN, BENARES. Pp. 103. BY G. E. period.
KAYE. Calcutta, Government of India Press, Mr. Sarkar notou that 152 pages of the voluinn) 1920. are taken from his Shivaji and his Times, on which
This is by way of being a Guide Book to four (I have already remarked at length in this Journal of the a
| of the observatories constructed by Raja Sawai ante, pp. 162-156), and this makes me repeat here
Jai Singh of Jaipur, who lived from 1686 to 1743, that Shivaji's slaying of Afzal Khan being regarded
just after Newton. The fifth observatory was at As the result of Afzal's own treachery wants
Muttra. This book is condensed from a large much more verification than it has yet received
work in vol. XL of the Imperial series of the even at his competent and careful hands. I say
Archeological Survey of India. Besides the this because his book is so good that it is likely
text there is a Bibliography, a short glossary of to be long received as an authority on all points,
astronomical terms including Arabic, Sanskrit There are many-very many-pathotic stories
and vernacular, and an Index. in Indian History at all poriods, but there are few more pathetic instances of the vicissitudes of life
Mr. Kaye observes that Jai Singh's work, won. in the case of exalted personages than that of
derful as it was, is now only a tradition. It has Aurangzib's general Mirza Jai Singh. His mixed
I fear, alas ! become worse than a tradition and Muhammadan and Hindu titles proclaimed him
nothing more than a mere legend in the minds of for what he was, as expressed in Mr. Sarkar's own
the people. Witness the stories I gathered in my words: "A man of infinite tact and patience,
Legends of the Panjab a generation ago. an adopt in the ceremonious courtesy of the Mus. The main legend is that Jai Singh kopt a private limy, a master of Turki and Persian, beside moon of his own and the hero of one of the Panjab Urdu and the Rajput dialect, an ideal leader of stories made himself Jai Singh's equal by setting the composito army of Afghans and Turks, Rajpute up an opposition moon. The story as related to and Hindustanis that followed the crescent ban. me was partly in ordinary Hindustani and partly ner of the sovereign of Delhi." Pitted against in archaio verse, and is such puro folklore and Shivaji and then Bijapur, with inadequate moans so deliciously put that I can't help repeating a and badly served by his own subordinates and his portion of the prose here. representatives at the distant Imperial Court, ho "Now Raja Jai Singh had a moon of his own, failed for the first time in his long career of 60 years which he hung up in the sky to give light to his