Maharaja

“ And when on the morrow these dreams were told to Prajapati, she rejoiced with them, no thought of envy to cloud the crystal of her soul. And when they were laid before the dream-readers, they could presage nothing but good, and being called in before the Maharaja where he sat in state with his Maharanis, they spoke as follows:
“A lord of men shall be born, a great and awful ruler. Let the soul of the Maharaja be exalted, and the heart of the Maharani rejoice and triumph, since to their house is given a son whose kingdom is the earth and the fullness of it.” ”

“ And these happy people had a good Maharaja, named Suddhodana, or Pure Rice, because not only were his granaries and those of his fathers’ before him full to overflowing, but his heart was pure as the grains of living pearl; a man grave and kind, rich also in cattle and elephants, yet not arrogant with riches, charitable, alms-giving, reverencing the Brahman and the ascetic, walking in peace in the way of ancient pieties, with thoughts of his own to think as he raised his eyes to the mountains, awful in the heavens as intermediaries between men and Gods. ”

“ From the Museum go out through the city to the Maharaja’s Palace—skilfully avoiding the man who would show you the Maharaja’s European billiard-room, and wander through a wilderness of sunlit, sleepy courts, gay with paint and frescoes, till you reach an inner square, where smiling grey-bearded men squat at ease and play chaupur—just such a game as cost the Pandavs the fair Draupadi—with inlaid dice and gaily lacquered pieces. ”

“ His son moved before him, beautiful exceedingly, perfect in duty not only to his father and his foster-mother, Prajapati the fair and noble, but also to all with whom he had to do, quick to smile and reply, glad in a boy’s sports and games, and yet—apart. As a man, looking down through the clear crystal of a lake, may behold beneath it groves of strange leafage where silver fish dart and disappear in a life unknown to him, so the Maharaja, looking through the translucence of his son’s eyes uplifted to his, knew that they revealed yet hid a world in which he had no part. ”

“ Hence in the temples where the Maharajas do homage to the idols, men and women do homage to the Maharajas, prostrating themselves at their feet, offering them incense, fruits, and flowers, and waving lights before them, as the Maharajas themselves do before the images of the gods. One mode of worshipping Krishna is by swinging his images in swings. Hence, in every district presided over by a Maharaja, the women are wont to worship not Krishna but the Maharaja by swinging him in pendulous seats. ”

“ Towards the end of his book, the Maharaja, as men in their later lives, gets back to religion, and with robust common-sense untainted with theology he beats the whole Hindu system into shape, wipes off excrescences, and shows up the underlying truths in strong relief. ”

“ Os. "Kindly promise one thing more and you oblige us completely. Promise that you will bring forward the terms offered by us, when you see the Maharaja."
"Worthy general" replied the Prince, "excuse me, Sir, I cannot promise this. ”

“ With them the Noble People brought their Gods of Heaven and Earth, and these they worshipped with sacrifice and ritual and chanting of mantra and offerings of cows and grain and ghi and all the savours dear to hovering divinity. And in peace and plenty their Maharaja ruled them.
Very fair was the city on the banks of bright Rohini. As there were few men of arrogant, dominant riches, so was there no piercing poverty, and, since life was simple, all had enough. ”

“ I would assign him a liberal income, to be placed at his absolute disposal, and treat him with full honour as titular Chief, but I would exclude him from all real power. He may reign, but not govern. A great danger with the Maharaja is that his notorious weakness of character and purpose render him and easy tool in the hands of an unscrupulous adviser, and therefore it is essential that he should be controlled by some agency upon which the Government of India can place confidence. ”

“ Praise to the Wielder of the thunder and to all great Gods who hear our prayers.”
Then tenderly, but with a calm immovable, the Prince declared his heart’s desire.
“O kind father, worthy of all obedience, hear my case. The grief that has moved me is not my grief alone. Were I to die, I can die silent, after the manner of our race. But a man, when he beholds other men old, diseased, dying, is hurt, ashamed, revolted that such things should be, and no way of conquering such evils. There is a way if it could but be found.”
And the Maharaja replied with anger. ”

“ My valued friend Sir Dinkar Rao informs me that, among other traditions of high Mahratta society, he has been told by aged men that the Maharaja was never known to evince serious displeasure save with cowards and men who fled in battle. ”

“ The Maharaja is a Hindu of the Hindus, and is no believer in the advantage of educating youths to doubt and despise the system under which they have to live their own Jives, and in which all those around them live and move and have their being. Upon the marriage question he is content with what Nature prescribes for India, and does not yearn to substitute for it systems Providence provided for wholly different circumstances. ”

“ A drive was instantly proposed, and we were taken to the Maharaja's palace, with grounds laid out conventionally, the trees and shrubs representing peacocks and animals of different kinds. The palace was spacious but tawdrily furnished; it is noteworthy as being the home to which the Maharaja and his family repair whenever they feel the approach of death; there is a superstition among the Hindus that death must occur on the north bank of the sacred river Ganges, in order to become a monkey after death (monkeys are considered sacred) ”

“ Neither the maharaja nor his prime minister had ever taken much interest in the muddy, coiling politics of India. It was indifferent to them what particular foreign barbarian—English or Afghan or Mogul or Persian—was overlord of the great peninsula. They seemed satisfied with ruling the little rocky, barren principality, with the faded glory of the dead centuries, and with the decidedly theological and just as decidedly unworldly fact that the Oneypores were considered the living representatives of the gods by the vast majority of Hindus. ”

“ Now there stood in the shade of the bamboos a man much about the person of the Maharaja, sent to see if all were well, and when the Prince passed on, careless, this nobleman, Udayi, came out and addressed the silent beauties.
“You women, all so graceful and fair, are you thus worsted? Surely in all ages men have been subject to women when they put forth their power. Too soon are you discouraged—too soon. For this Prince, though he restrains his heart with the bit and bridle of purity, is but a man, and the wisest and greatest in time past have slipped where they thought themselves secure. ”

“ Lord Lansdowne, if-with such guarantees as the Maharaja has expressed his willingness to give for the good government of the people of Kashmir - he were to restore Partab Singh to his throne, would do not merely a kindly, but also an eminently wise thing. Notwithstanding what has been publicly said by an-ex India official, who ought to have known better, respecting the character of the Maharaja, His Highness is not 'a drunken debaucher ', nor is he a man of immoral life. He has never been in the habit of taking intoxicating liquors; he is singularly abstemious. ”

“ My son a beggar! Our race is beaten to the earth with shame.”
And standing calmly before the angry Maharaja the Blessed One after due salutation lifted his eyes and replied:
“Maharaj, this is the custom of our race.”
“This horrible thing is not so. Not one of our ancestors has ever begged his bread.”
“Maharaj, you and your high race claim descent from kings,—but my descent is far otherwise. It is from the Buddhas of ancient days, and as they have done, begging their food from the charitable, so do I, nor can I otherwise.” ”

“ It is very painful to such as love India, and her sons of every rank and station, to look back upon many careers of great promise, which have come to a sad and premature end, and though the like happens in other countries as well as in India, there are certain temptations to which the great in our Eastern Empire are especially subject, and it is with these for the most part that the Maharaja is concerned. ”

“ Before thine eyes the branches twain I'll lop:
How prove thee, Maharaja, otherwise,
Whether this be or be not? I will count
One by one—fruits and leaves—before thee, King;
Varshneya, for a space, can rein the steeds."
To him replied the Raja: "Time is none
Now to delay."
Vahûka answered quick
(His own set purpose serving) : "Stay this space,
Or by thyself drive on! The road is good,
The son of Vrishni will be charioteer!"
On that the Raja answered soothingly:—
"There is not in the earth another man
That hath thy skill ”

“ The present rule of any Indian Maharaja may be as good or as bad as that of a British Governor or Lieutenant Governor, but the latter has in it greater democratic potentialities than the former, for the mere fact, if for no other, that, while the British are more or less amenable to world opinion, the rulers of Native States are not. ”

“ Few Parliamentary candidates in these days dare say as much! The Maharaja deals with religious questions in a down-right practical manner, the applications of which throughout the world's history would have changed the history of the world. ”

“ It has been my good fortune to be associated with most capable, public-spirited, and high-minded princes and noblemen such as their Highnesses the Maharaja of Travancore, and the Raja of Cochin, and the Maharaja of Bobbili, but I have numbered among my friends in India others born to high station, and possessed of very great merits, who have nevertheless had short or unsuccessful lives, owing to their neglect of some of the lessons the Maharaja essays to teach. ”

“ The Maharaja agrees that any person, whether a subject of the British Government, or of the Maharaja, or of the Ruler of Yarkand, or of any foreign State, may settle at any place within the jurisdiction of the Commissioners, and may provide, keep, maintain, and let for hire at different stages the means of carriage and transport for the purposes of trade. ”

“ The Maharaja agreed on the understanding that Europeans should soon be sent to support them—a very necessary condition, for he knew that his men could only be trusted so long as there was no doubt of our ultimate success. ”

“ He has never forgotten his father's intentions on his behalf, and the object he is working for is to become Maharaja of Kashmir. Once he gets power into his own hands he will use it without scruple to attain this end. At present the Maharaja is friendly to Raja Amar Singh, because he wishes to Break the bond which unites the two younger brothers and Diwan Lachman Das, but there is no genuine affection or confidence between them ”

“ You can ride a lion; You can play with the cobra; By alchemy you can eke out your livelihood; You can wander through the universe incognito; You can make vassals of the gods; You can be ever youthful; You can walk on water and live in fire; But control of the mind is better and more difficult.
In the beautiful and fertile State of Travancore in the extreme south of India, where traffic is conveyed over rivers and canals, the Maharaja assumes every year a hereditary obligation to expiate the sin incurred by wars and the annexation in the distant past of several petty states to Travancore. ”

“ The young Maharaja of Kuch Parwani assures me that it is not considered the thing for a Raja at the present day to govern. "A really swell Raja amuses himself." One hoards money, another plays at soldiering, a third is horsey, a fourth is amorous, and a fifth gets drunk; at least so Kuch Parwani thinks. Please don't say that I told you this. The Foreign Secretary knows what a high opinion I have of the Rajas, and indeed he often employs me to whitewash them when they get into scrapes. "A little playful, perhaps, but no more loyal Prince in India!" ”

“ They might be reminded with advantage, as the Maharaja takes occasion to remind the Hindus, that according to the sacred writings enjoyment of life also is a duty. Who will dare to improve upon what a Hindu Maharaja of high character and standing has to say upon the sacred theme of charity? ”

“ During his minority Hyderabad was wisely administered by Sir Salar Jung, who initiated a form of government which was most beneficial to his State.
The Maharaja of Mysore is the ruler of a State in southern India of a total area of 80,000 square miles, containing a population of 5,500,000, and yielding a revenue of about £1,500,000. It is an ancient Hindu dynasty which has undergone strange vicissitudes. ”

“ The Maharaja having devoted a chapter to courage now shows his own, by entering the nursery, wherein he wisely deprecates intellectual forcing, urges that Hindu teachers are best for Hindu girls, and that European tutors for boys, themselves need supervision. ”

“ The Jaipur troops were much on a par with those of Bhopal and Udaipur. I was glad, therefore, that in lieu of troops, the Maharaja had agreed to organize, as his contribution to the Imperial service, a transport corps of 1,000 fully-equipped animals.
At Ulwar I found the 600 Cavalry and 1,000 Infantry (all Rajputs) well advanced in their drill and training; this was evidently owing to the personal interest taken in them by the Maharaja, who seldom allowed a day to pass without visiting the parade grounds. ”