Rajas

“ At the time of which we are speaking, the Hindu Rajas were to some extent free from Imperial interference. As long as they punctually paid the revenue, they might do much as they liked in their own territories. They had armies, courts, and ministers of their own; and men of merit flocked to their palaces for rewards and distinctions.
Raja Krishna Chandra of Nadia created for himself an imperishable name as a great patron of literature and learning. ”

“ On hearing these words Shree Krishnù Chund was delighted, and said, “Raja! you have formed a good wish, by this gods, men, saints and sages will all be gratified; this will be agreeable to all, and it is not at all difficult for you to do this; because your four brothers, Urjoon, Bheem, Nukool and Suhdeo are very renowned and powerful; there is not any one in the world now who can oppose them; first send them forth to conquer, and bring under subjection the Rajas of the ten quarters of the world, and after that perform the sacrifice at your ease.” ”

“ I had a fine estate and herds of cattle and fine clothes; now that is all gone and you have scarcely enough to eat. I am old and like to die and before I leave you I wish to give you this advice: there are many Rajas in the world, Raja above Raja; when I am dead do you seek the protection of some powerful Raja.” As there was not enough to eat at home Kara had to take service as goat-herd under a neighbouring Raja; by which he earned his food and clothes and two rupees a year. ”

“ He, O great king! uttered many expressions of this kind, standing up in the court and weeping; but no one made any reply; at length Urjoon, sitting near Shree Krishnù Chund, and hearing what was said was perplexed in his mind, and said, “O deity! in whose presence have you thus spoken, and why are you thus afflicted? There is no archer in this court, who can drive away your grief; modern Rajas are selfish, and not men, who prevent the afflictions of others, and confer happiness on their subjects, and protect the cow and brahmin.” ”

“ India is not very fastidious; so long as the Government is satisfied, the people of India do not much care what the Rajas are like. A peasant proprietor said to Mr. Caird and me the other day, "We are poor cultivators; we cannot afford to keep Rajas. The Rajas are for the Lord Sahib." ”

“ For Prakriti is constituted of three gunas or essential modes of energy; sattwa, the seed of intelligence, conserves the workings of energy; rajas, the seed of force and action, creates the workings of energy; tamas, the seed of inertia and non-intelligence, the denial of sattwa and rajas, dissolves what they create and and conserve. When these three powers of the energy of Prakriti are in a state of equilibrium, all is in rest, there is no movement, action or creation and there is therefore nothing to be reflected in the immutable luminous being of the conscious Soul. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ Dominated by rajas, man flings himself into the battle and attempts to use the struggle of forces for his own egoistic benefit, to slay, conquer, dominate, enjoy; or, helped by a certain measure of the sattwic quality, the rajasic man makes the struggle itself a means of increasing inner mastery, joy, power, possession. ”

“ An old man told them that the king had been dethroned years ago by seven lying astrologers, who were living like rajas far up the river. Raja Donan found his parents occupying a poor hut in a wood; but, having slain the lying astrologers, he put his parents on the throne again, and made Mandi Angin as prosperous and peaceful as it had ever been. Having done this, Raja Donan sailed away to his kingdom, where he ever after dwelt in peace and happiness. He was absent for a short time, however, when he kept his word and visited the Princess Linggan Chahya in the heavens. ”

“ Playful no doubt, but a more loyal class than the Rajas there is not in India. They have built their houses of cards on the thin crust of British Rule that now covers the crater, and they are ever ready to pour a pannikin of water into a crack to quench the explosive forces rumbling below.
The amiable chief in whose house I am staying to-day is exceedingly simple in his habits. At an early hour he issues from the zenana and joins two or three of his thakores, or barons, who are on duty at Court, in the morning draught of opium. ”

“ The government of the Batta country, although nominally in the hands of three or more sovereign rajas, is effectively (so far as our intercourse with the people enables us to ascertain) divided into numberless petty chiefships, the heads of which, also styled rajas, have no appearance of being dependant upon any superior power, but enter into associations with each other, particularly with those belonging to the same tribe, for mutual defence and security against any distant enemy. ”

“ Dudheech having had his body licked by a cow extracted his thigh bone and gave it to the gods, who made it into a thunderbolt, and Dudheech having sacrificed his life, obtained paradise. Such are instances of men of boundless liberality, whose fame the world celebrates.”
Raja! having thus spoken, Shree Krishnù Chund Jee, said to Joorasindhoo, “O great king! you equal in the present age the just and liberal Rajas, who flourished formerly in other ages, and now satisfy our expectations in the same way, that formerly they fulfilled the desires of those who solicited them. ”

“ The more powerful rajas assume authority over the lives of their subjects. The dependants are bound to attend their chief in his journeys and in his wars, and when an individual refuses he is expelled from the society without permission to take his property along with him. They are supplied with food for their expeditions, and allowed a reward for each person they kill. The revenues of the chief arise principally from fines of cattle adjudged in criminal proceedings, which he always appropriates to himself; and from the produce of the camphor and benzoin trees throughout his district ”

“ The Raja is the representative of the descendants of Raja Karamullah Khan, of the Kashmir family who were Rajas of Rajauri. The last ruling chief was Rahim-ullah Khan, who died in 1847. The possessions of the family came under the dominion of the Sikh chief, Gulab Singh, and the family migrated to Rehlu, in the Punjab, where they have become important. The family were originally Hindus, and their descent may be traced from Raja Jir Rao, a Jhiral Rajput of the stock of the Mahabharat Pandars. ”

“ Raja Narsi Barderas married the daughter of Raja Salan, the raja of Amdan Nayara, who, it is asserted by some, was the grandson of Raja Nashirwan Adel, the son of Raja Kobad Shah Shahriar, who was raja of the east and west. This Raja Sulan was the mightiest prince of the lands of Hind and Sind, and of all the rajas under the wind (i. e. towards the west, the wind being supposed to rise with the sun) . By the princess his daughter, Raja Narsi had three sons; 1. Raja Heiran, who reigned in the country of Hindostan. 2. Raja Suran, whom Raja Sulan took and installed in his own place. ”

“ The younger son then quarrelled with his brother and retiring to the taluks in the north advised the people there to withhold paying rent to his brother. The elder at once wrote to his father who hastened to Kurchedu and chastised his son for the unbecoming behaviour. Then the enemies of the Rajah, who were the cause of sowing such seeds of disaffection between the brothers next came to the father to try their skill in that direction, but the father soon understood their real motives and thought to punish them, when they escaped and rose in open revolt. ”

“ Private Life and Character. — The Rajah's eldest son Vidwat Kumara Yachama Naidu was requested by Lakshma Rao, the father's father of the present Rajah of Jatprole to be given in adoption as his own son; but the father declined. Unfortunately, the boy died on account of sickness in his nineteenth year even after his marriage. Thus his second son became heir.
The Rajah was fond of horse-riding and hawk-hunting, but his chief pride lay in elephant-challenge. ”

“ On the 19th March, 1920, the Rajah was raised to the rank of Honorary Aide-de-Camp to His Excellency the Governor of Madras. In 1921 he was nominated as a member of the Council of State (which he has subsequently resigned) newly opened after the Reform Act of 1920, and on 1st January, 1922, honoured with the rare distinction of K.C.I.E.
He extended the size of the Estate by purchasing several villages, Arthamala, Putheri, Kotambedu and others, formerly belonging to the Kalahasti Estate, at a cost of nearly a lakh-and-a-half rupees. ”

“ Private life. — The Maharajah's life is one of the most glorious, eventful, long and prosperous in the History of Venkatagiri Rajahs. Having assumed charge of the Estate even in his twenty-second year, from his father who peacefully led a life of retirement in Madras, he evinced from that young age great tact and natural capacity for administration. ”

“ Coming to the brothers of the Maharajah, among those that went in adoption to other Estates, the Kumara-Rajah of Pittapur, born in 1858, was deprived of his Estate and so he spent his time mostly in Madras. He is known for his general good nature and love of sports. ”

“ Knowing this the Nawab at once ordered that the Matla Nishan should be bordered red and the same observance reported to the Raja.
Religious. — Those being days of Aurangzib's destruction of the Hindu temples and idols, a pious man of Benares had a dream that he was ordained by God Siva to take a particular idol of His, lying hidden in the Ganges to Venkatagiri, and hand it over to His devoted follower the Rajah. Next morning when the pious man awoke and entered the Ganges to have his daily bath, he came across, to his great surprise, the same idol at the appointed place. ”

“ At the time of his Installation, the Rajah gave in November, 1917, another sum of Rs. 50,000 for the War Fund. He had also continued to subscribe for the maintenance of the Hospital-ship, like his father, at the same time raising the monthly subscription in the name of himself and his family to Rs. 1,500. He also bore all costs of recruiting persons to the Indian Defence Force. He himself underwent Military Training, as also his eldest son. ”

“ When you consider the matter philosophically there is nothing per se ridiculous in a Raja. Take a hypothetical case: picture to yourself a Raja who does not get drunk without some good reason, who is not ostentatiously unfaithful to his five-and-twenty queens and his five-and-twenty grand duchesses, who does not festoon his thorax and abdomen with curious cutlery and jewels, who does not paint his face with red ochre, and who sometimes takes a sidelong glance at his affairs, and there is no reason why you should not think of such a one as an Indian king. India is not very fastidious ”

“ The state he has come over to govern is an ideal place, a kind of little Paradise, so at least they tell me, where for the last two or three generations the most admirable laws have been in force. The late rajah seems to have been half a philosopher and half a saint. He bequeathed his rule to a young man brought up in England, recommending him to his people by a curious fiction. He said, it appears, that in the person of this young man, who seems to be strikingly like him, he would himself return to the earth. ”

“ There was once a very rich and powerful Raja and in his heart he thought that there was no one so powerful in the world as himself; thus he thought but he told no one of his thought. One day he made up his mind to see whether others could guess what he was thinking, so he called together his officers and servants and dependants and bade them tell him what thought was in [193] his heart. Many of them made guesses, but not one gave an answer which satisfied the Raja. ”

“ After that the Raja used to visit the banyan tree every day, and when he found that it did not wither although it had been taken up by the roots, he concluded that what he had seen was true and he began to prepare for death. So he distributed all his wealth among his friends and among the poor; and when his officers remonstrated he made them no answer. A few days later he died, and was taken to the palace which he had seen being built.
It is said that what you give away in this world, you will get back in the next; there you will get good wages for what you have done in this life. ”

“ O great king! when Bruhmù, having restored Roohitas to life, and seated the Raja and Ranee, together with their son, on a chariot, gave the order to proceed to the celestial paradise, Raja Hurchund joining his hands, said to Bhugwan, ‘O brother of the poor, purifying the guilty and kind to the wretched! how can I go and dwell in paradise without Soopuch?’ Having heard this speech, and knowing the Raja’s secret wishes, Huri, the benefactor of his worshippers, the sea of compassion, granted deliverance to Soopuch, together with the city in which he abode, and to the Raja, Ranee and their son. ”