Royal Umbrellas of Stone: Memory, Politics, and Public Identity in Rajput Funerary Art 9004300546, 9789004300545

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration
Chronological Chart of Rajput and Other Dynasties
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas
Sources and Structure of the Book
Rituals: The Chatrī as Politically Charged Performative Space
The Commemorated: Public Ancestors and the Deified Deceased
Origins of the Chatrī
The King is Dead, Long Live the King! “Invented Tradition” and Memorialization in North Indian Kingship
An Indic Iconography of Extraordinariness: Umbrellas in South Asian Art
Chapter 1
Interrupted Continuities: The Chatrīs of the Kachhwaha Rajputs of Amber and Jaipur
Building a Kachhawaha Paradigm: Rājā Man Singh
Sibling Rivalry and Contested Authority: Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II’s Chatrī in Jaipur
The Temple-Chatrī of Ishwari Singh, the Suicide King
A Triumphal Homecoming: The Frieze Program on Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh II’s Chatrī
Anonymous Memorialization: The Chatrīs of the Kachhwaha Queens
Conclusion
Chapter 2
Keeping Up with the Kachhwahas: The Chatrīs of the Narukas of Alwar, the Dadu Panthis, and the Shekhawati Merchants
The Chatrīs of the Narukas of Alwar
The Chatrī as a Legitimizer of Sacred Authority: Memorializing the Dadu Panthis
Shardul Singh and the Pāñch Pannā System in Jhunjhunu, Shekhawati
Memorializing the Nouveaux Riches: Baniya Chatrīs in Shekhawati
Conclusion
Chapter 3
A Deceptive Message of Resistance: Nostalgia and the Early Jodha Rathores’ Renaissant Devals
The Pratihara Paradigm
Rājā Udai Singh’s “Two Hats”: Politics and Memorialization at Mandore
The Mandore Devals and Marwari Public Pitrs
Parallels in Seventeenth-Century Marwari Painting
Conclusion
Chapter 4
Shifting Allegiances, Shifting Styles: Later Jodha Rathore Memorials
Mahārājā Ajit Singh, the Sisodia Past, and the Maru-Gurjara-Renaissant-Style Devals at Mandore
Same Message, Different Media: Ajit Singh’s Other Commissions
Mixed Messages: Art and Politics under Mahārājā Abhai Singh
Man Singh, the Naths, and the Mahārājā’s Thaṛa
Jaswant Thara: The “Taj of Jodhpur” and the Memorialized Jodha Rathores under the Raj
Conclusion
Chapter 5
Devi Kund Sagar: The Iconography of Satī and Its Absence in Bikaner’s Chatrīs
The Mughal Model
Gendered Paradigms in Bika Rathore Funerary Art
The Iconography of Eternal Union
Lakshminath’s Divine Darbār
Monuments, Memorials, and the Politics of Restoration under Mahārājā Ganga Singh
Conclusion
Chapter 6
Eklingji’s Divine Darbār: The Sisodia Chatrīs of Mewar
The Art of Propaganda: The Sisodias’ Invented Tradition of Resistance
Eklingji and Sisodia Political Legitimacy
Eklingji’s Eternal Dīvāns at Mahasatiya
Conclusion
Chapter 7
Conclusion: Beyond Rajasthan
Memorializing Marathas in Their New Capitals
Claiming Sikh Space in Lahore: Mahārājā Ranjit Singh’s Samādhi
The Living Chatrī Tradition
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview



Royal Umbrellas of Stone: Memory, Politics, and Public Identity in Rajput Funerary Art

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004300569_001

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Brill’s Indological Library Edited by Johannes Bronkhorst In co-operation with Richard Gombrich, Oskar von Hinüber, Katsumi Mimaki, Arvind Sharma

VOLUME 48

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/bil





Royal Umbrellas of Stone: Memory, Politics, and Public Identity in Rajput Funerary Art By

Melia Belli Bose

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Cover illustration: Pāliyā in Bhaktawar Singh’s chatrī, Alwar, Rajasthan. Photograph courtesy of Matthew Dicken. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Belli Bose, Melia. Royal umbrellas of stone : memory, politics, and public identity in Rajput funerary art / by Melia Belli Bose. pages cm. -- (Brill’s Indological library, ISSN 0925-2916 ; volume 48) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-30054-5 (hardback : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-30056-9 (e-book) 1. Rajput (Indic people)--Social life and customs. 2. Rajput (Indic people)--Religion. 3. Sepulchral monuments--India--Rajasthan--History. 4. Funeral rites and ceremonies--India--Rajasthan--History. 5. Rajput art--History. 6. Art and society--India--Rajasthan--History. 7. Memory--Social aspects--India-Rajasthan--History. 8. Politics and culture--India--Rajasthan--History. 9. Group identity--India-Rajasthan--History. 10. Rajasthan (India)--Social life and customs. I. Title. DS432.R3B38 2015 736’.509544--dc23 2015023717

This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0925-2916 isbn 978-90-04-30054-5 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30056-9 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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For my late father, Melvin Belli, who is remembered far beyond his humble grave in Sonora, California

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Contents Contents

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Contents

Acknowledgments xi A Note on Transliteration xiv Chronological Chart of Rajput and Other Dynasties xv List of Illustrations xvii

Introduction: Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas 1 An Indic Iconography of Extraordinariness: Umbrellas in South Asian Art 8 The King Is Dead, Long Live the King! “Invented Tradition” and Memorialization in North Indian Kingship 9 Origins of the Chatrī 14 The Commemorated: Public Ancestors and the Deified Deceased 19 Rituals: The Chatrī as Politically Charged Performative Space 23 Sources and Structure of the Book 29 1 Interrupted Continuities: The Chatrīs of the Kachhwaha Rajputs of Amber and Jaipur 33 Building a Kachhawaha Paradigm: Rājā Man Singh 36 Sibling Rivalry and Contested Authority: Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II’s Chatrī in Jaipur 49 The Temple-Chatrī of Ishwari Singh, the Suicide King 61 A Triumphal Homecoming: The Frieze Program on Mahārājā Sawai Madho Singh II’s Chatrī 70 Anonymous Memorialization: The Chatrīs of the Kachhwaha Queens 88 Conclusion 92 2 Keeping Up with the Kachhwahas: The Chatrīs of the Narukas of Alwar, the Dadu Panthis, and the Shekhawati Merchants 93 The Chatrīs of the Narukas of Alwar 95 The Chatrī as a Legitimizer of Sacred Authority: Memorializing the Dadu Panthis 115 Shardul Singh and the Pāñch Pannā System in Jhunjhunu, ­Shekhawati 121 Memorializing the Nouveaux Riches: Baniya Chatrīs in Shekhawati 126 Conclusion 134

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Contents

3 A Deceptive Message of Resistance: Nostalgia and the Early Jodha Rathores’ Renaissant Devals 137 The Pratihara Paradigm 139 Rājā Udai Singh’s “Two Hats”: Politics and Memorialization at ­Mandore 143 The Mandore Devals and Marwari Public Pitrs 157 Parallels in Seventeenth-Century Marwari Painting 166 Conclusion 171 4 Shifting Allegiances, Shifting Styles: Later Jodha Rathore ­Memorials 173 Mahārājā Ajit Singh, the Sisodia Past, and the Maru-Gurjara-RenaissantStyle Devals at Mandore 174 Same Message, Different Media: Ajit Singh’s Other Commissions 181 Mixed Messages: Art and Politics under Mahārājā Abhai Singh 187 Man Singh, the Naths, and the Mahārājā’s Thaṛa 195 Jaswant Thara: The “Taj of Jodhpur” and the Memorialized Jodha Rathores under the Raj 202 Conclusion 212 5 Devi Kund Sagar: The Iconography of Satī and Its Absence in Bikaner’s Chatrīs 213 The Mughal Model 215 Gendered Paradigms in Bika Rathore Funerary Art 218 The Iconography of Eternal Union 228 Lakshminath’s Divine Darbār 235 Monuments, Memorials, and the Politics of Restoration under Mahārājā Ganga Singh 238 Conclusion 246 6 Eklingji’s Divine Darbār: The Sisodia Chatrīs of Mewar 248 The Art of Propaganda: The Sisodias’ Invented Tradition of ­Resistance 248 Eklingji and Sisodia Political Legitimacy 258 Eklingji’s Eternal Dīvāns at Mahasatiya 262 Conclusion 279 7 Conclusion: Beyond Rajasthan 281 Memorializing Marathas in Their New Capitals 282 Claiming Sikh Space in Lahore: Mahārājā Ranjit Singh’s Samādhi 287 The Living Chatrī Tradition 295

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Contents

Glossary  299 Bibliography 307 Index 317

Contents Contents vii Acknowledgments xi A Note on Transliteration xiv Chronological Chart of Rajput and Other Dynasties xv List of Map and Illustrations xvii Map xvii Figures xvii Introduction: Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas 1 An Indic Iconography of Extraordinariness: Umbrellas in South Asian Art The King is Dead, Long Live the King! “Invented Tradition” and Memorialization in North Indian Kingship Origins of the Chatrī 14 The Commemorated: Public Ancestors and the Deified Deceased Rituals: The Chatrī as Politically Charged Performative Space Sources and Structure of the Book Chapter 1 33 Interrupted Continuities: The Chatrīs of the Kachhwaha Rajputs of Amber and Jaipur 33 Building a Kachhawaha Paradigm: Rājā Man Singh Sibling Rivalry and Contested Authority: Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II’s Chatrī in Jaipur The Temple-Chatrī of Ishwari Singh, the Suicide King A Triumphal Homecoming: The Frieze Program on Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh II’s Chatrī Anonymous Memorialization: The Chatrīs of the Kachhwaha Queens Conclusion 92 Chapter 2 93 Keeping Up with the Kachhwahas: The Chatrīs of the Narukas of Alwar, the Dadu Panthis, and the Shekhawati Merchants The Chatrīs of the Narukas of Alwar The Chatrī as a Legitimizer of Sacred Authority: Memorializing the Dadu Panthis Shardul Singh and the Pāñch Pannā System in Jhunjhunu, Shekhawati Memorializing the Nouveaux Riches: Baniya Chatrīs in Shekhawati Conclusion 134 Chapter 3 137 A Deceptive Message of Resistance: Nostalgia and the Early Jodha Rathores’ Renaissant Devals The Pratihara Paradigm 139 Rājā Udai Singh’s “Two Hats”: Politics and Memorialization at Mandore The Mandore Devals and Marwari Public Pitrs Parallels in Seventeenth-Century Marwari Painting Conclusion 171 Chapter 4 173 Shifting Allegiances, Shifting Styles: Later Jodha Rathore Memorials 173 Mahārājā Ajit Singh, the Sisodia Past, and the Maru-Gurjara-Renaissant-Style Devals at Mandore Same Message, Different Media: Ajit Singh’s Other Commissions Mixed Messages: Art and Politics under Mahārājā Abhai Singh Man Singh, the Naths, and the Mahārājā’s Thaṛa Jaswant Thara: The “Taj of Jodhpur” and the Memorialized Jodha Rathores under the Raj Conclusion 212 Chapter 5 213 Devi Kund Sagar: The Iconography of Satī and Its Absence in Bikaner’s Chatrīs 213 The Mughal Model 215 Gendered Paradigms in Bika Rathore Funerary Art The Iconography of Eternal Union Lakshminath’s Divine Darbār 235 Monuments, Memorials, and the Politics of Restoration under Mahārājā Ganga Singh Conclusion 246 Chapter 6 248 Eklingji’s Divine Darbār: The Sisodia Chatrīs of Mewar 248 The Art of Propaganda: The Sisodias’ Invented Tradition of Resistance Eklingji and Sisodia Political Legitimacy Eklingji’s Eternal Dīvāns at Mahasatiya Conclusion 279 Chapter 7 281 Conclusion: Beyond Rajasthan 281 Memorializing Marathas in Their New Capitals Claiming Sikh Space in Lahore: Mahārājā Ranjit Singh’s Samādhi The Living Chatrī Tradition 295 Glossary 299 Bibliography 307 Index 317

8 9 19 23 29 36 49 61 70 88 93 95 115 121 126 137 143 157 166

174 181 187 195 202

218 228 238

248 258 262

282 287

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Contents

Acknowledgments Acknowledgments

xi

Acknowledgments I first encountered Rajput chatrīs nearly a decade ago while participating in a year-long Hindi language program run by the American Institute of Indian Studies in Jaipur. I was enchanted by the lofty, elegant stone kiosks with their intricate carvings of hunts, elephant fights, mounted warriors, attendant women, and often lengthy inscriptions I saw throughout Rajasthan. I began asking people who lived near chatrīs about them. Usually, they directed me to a local historian, temple, ṭākur, or the nearest fort. And so the adventure began and went on to take me to dozens of necropolises throughout Rajasthan and ­Madhya Pradesh, as well as one in Pakistan, and another in England. Information on individual chatrīs, their meanings, functions, and the circumstances under which they were built came from myriad living sources: scholars, religious authorities, members of royal families and their record keepers, priests, and pilgrims at sacred chatrīs. Countless individuals assisted me in this project by sharing their time, information, documents, and insights. Without their help, my initial interest in the chatrīs would have remained simply that. I am deeply indebted to them. Dr. Shakti Singh Rathore Chandawat of Khakharki is a Jodhpur-based historian who is impressively knowledgeable about Rajasthani history and culture. I was so fortunate to have him not only as my dedicated and enthusiastic research assistant, but also a friend and honorary bhaiya. Also in Jodhpur, I am grateful to the late Rajvi Jaipal Singh for his assistance with translations and explanations of aspects of Rajput culture. Rajvi Sahib was a polyglot who was fluent in numerous Rajasthani and other Indian languages, both ancient and living. He was also a historian, musician, and painter. With his passing Merangarh lost one of its most accomplished residents, the Rathores lost a great community member, and I lost a friend. I am also indebted to Mahendra Singh Nagar, head of the Maharaja Man Singh Research Institute, Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur, for introducing me to valuable contacts and offering thoughtful suggestions. In Bikaner, Harshvardhan Singh Rathore generously shared his wealth of knowledge about Rathore history and what it means to be a Rajput in the twenty-first century. His assistance was invaluable to this project; he personally took me to sites, introduced me to contacts, and facilitated my access to archives. He and his family also offered their gracious hospitality and delicious home-cooked Marwari food.

xii

Acknowledgments

Rao Chandra Sen Singh Rathore, Ṭhakūr of Kharwa, and his family kindly hosted me for several days at Kharwa Fort and spent long hours discussing their ancestral chatrīs, their current meanings and roles within their family and wider Rajput community. Pankaj Sharma, Head Curator of the Jaipur City Palace, and Tilok Sharma and Ajay Vikram Singh of the Udaipur City Palace, have my gratitude for assisting my archival and ethnographic research in those cities. Tikka Ram Sharma of Udaipur and Jagdish Narayan Sharma of Jaipur and their families spent much time explaining the social functions of the royal chatrīs in their cities. In Bikaner Zaharuddin Usta and his family graciously discussed their ancestral work of building the chatrīs at Devi Kund Sagar. I thank the scholars Jagat Pal Singh and R.C. Agrawala in Jaipur and Hari Singh Bhati in Bikaner for their hospitality and sharing their wisdom. For my abiding love of South Asian art, I have two particular teachers to thank. Giles Tillotson and Barbara Brend were my first South Asian art history professors at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Their passion for their subject, charisma, scholarship, and mentorship were inspirational. They remain models for my own teaching and scholarship. In my doctoral studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, I am indebted to Professors Allen F. Roberts and Sharon Gerstel for their support and careful reading of my dissertation from which this book grew. Catherine B. Asher, Rebecca M. Brown, and Molly Emma Aitken have my boundless gratitude for their kindness, support, encouragement, and brilliant insights over the years. Thank you for being inspiring mentors, dedicated scholars, and trail blazers in our field! Research for this project and the language acquisition it required were supported by numerous fellowships, including two American Institute of Indian Studies advanced language programs (Hindi and Urdu), a Junior Dissertation Fellowship, also from the American Institute of Indian Studies, and two Edward A. Dickson Art History Fellowships from UCLA. A postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis provided precious time to write. Support from the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Arlington and two grants from the Charles T. McDowell Center for Critical Languages and Area Studies, UTA, allowed me to return to India to conduct follow-up research. At Brill I was extremely fortunate to have Patricia Radder as my editor. Her inimitable style combines persistence, encouragement, and the patience of a saint. Earlier versions of sections from two chapters were published previously as articles. Chapter one draws from “In Memory of Gods and Kings: Power,

Acknowledgments

xiii

Politics, and the Role of the Past in Royal Kachhwaha Cenotaphs,” Journal of South Asian Studies 23 (2007): 127–41 and “A Triumphant Homecoming: The Frieze Program on Sawai Madho Singh II’s Cenotaph,” Marg 59 (2007): 44–54. Chapter five draws from “How a Princess Became a Goddess and a Memorial Became a Temple: Reading the Sacred and Secular Image at the Mahasati Mandir, Devi Kund Sagar,” Journal of the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 28 (2007): 57–73. Several dear friends traveled with me on various stages of my journey, either literally or figuratively. Dr. Mary Storm and Guy Mc Intyre are good friends in “the field,” whose hospitality in Delhi and Rajasthan always made me feel like a Maharani. They listened to my developing arguments and offered thoughtful suggestions. The company of Dr. Adnan Naseemullah and Shyamu Mod was very welcome on various chatrī-hunting expeditions. I thank Drs. Rebecca Hall, Lisa Boutin Vitela, Naomi Pitamber, Kristen Chiem, Tom Folland, Jean Murachanian, Saleema Waraich, Alia El Sandouby, Angelica Afanador Pujol and Alicia Walker for saving my sanity with laughter and empathy during the writing process. My deepest gratitude is to my husband, Dr. Neilesh Bose. Thank you for your insights, encouragement, and most of all, for your love.

আমার স্বামী, আমি ত�োমায় ভাল�োবাসি

xiv

Acknowledgments

A Note on Transliteration This book draws upon works written and spoken in numerous Indic languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu, Marwari, and Mewari. When several options were available, I generally elected to use the standard Hindi and Rajasthani forms of words for the sake of consistency, clarity, and to remain as true to my original textual and spoken sources as possible. For the Hindi vocabulary, I based my transliterations on R.S. Mc Gregor’s The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary.1 In an attempt to make my text more accessible to non-specialists, I have not used diacritics for proper nouns. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993): x–xx.

Chronological Other Dynasties Chronological Chart of Chart Rajput of andRajput Other and Dynasties

xv

Chronological Chart of Rajput and Other Dynasties Dynasty Kingdom Capital Bika Rathore Bikaner Bikaner Jodha Rathore Marwar Jodhpur Kachhwaha Amber/ Jaipur Amber/ Jaipur Naruka Alwar Alwar Shekhawat Various kingdoms in the Shekhawati region Sisodia Mewar Udaipur Holkar (Maratha Dynasty) Indore Indore Mughal Empire: 1526/ 1555–1857 Scindia (Maratha Dynasty) Ujjain/ Gwalior Ujjain/ Gwalior Sikh Empire 1799–1849 Lahore 15th c. Bika Rathore: Rao Bika (1465–1504)1 Jodha Rathore: Rao Jodha (1427–89) Sisodia: Rāṇā Kumbha (1433–68) Mid 16th- to early 17th c. Bika Rathore: Rao Kalyanmal (1541–71); Rājā Rai Singh (1571–1611) Jodha Rathore: Rao Maldev (1532–62); Rājā Udai Singh (1583–95) Kachhwaha: Rājā Man Singh I (1592–1614) Mughal: Emperor Akbar (1555–1605); Emperor Jahangir (1605–27) Sisodia: Rāṇā Pratap Singh (1572–97); Mahārāṇā Amar Singh I (1597–1620); Mahārāṇā Karan Singh (1620–28); Mahārāṇā Jagat Singh (1628–52) Mid 17th- to mid 18th c. Bika Rathore: Mahārājā Surat Singh (1788–1828); Rāj Kūmār Mota Singh, Satī Mā Deep Kunwar (d.1825) Jodha Rathore: Mahārājā Jaswant Singh (1638–1678); Mahārājā Ajit Singh (1707–24); Mahārājā Abhai Singh (1724–49) Kachhwaha: Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II (1688–1743); Mahārājā Ishwari Singh (1743–50); Mahārājā Madho Singh I (1750–68) Mughal: Emperor Shah Jahan (1628 -58) Shekhawat: Rao Shardul Singh (1681–1742)

1 Dates are regnal.

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Chronological Chart Of Rajput And Other Dynasties

Sisodia: Mahārāṇā Amar Singh II (r. 1698–1710); Mahārāṇā Sangram Singh II (1710–34); Mahārāṇā Jagat Singh II (1734–1751) Late 18th- to early 19th c. Bika Rathore: Mahārājā Ganga Singh (1888–1943) Jodha Rathore: Mahārājā Man Singh (1803–43); Mahārājā Takht Singh (1843– 73); Kachhwaha: Mahārājā Sawai Pratap Singh (1778–1803) Mughal: Emperor Arangzeb (1658–1707) Naruka: Rājā Pratap Singh (1774–91); Mahārājā Bakhtawar Singh (1791–1815) Sikh: Mahārājā Ranjit Singh (1799–1839) Mid 19th- to 20th c. Kachhwaha: Mahārājā Madho Singh II (r. 1880–1922); Mahārājā Man Singh II (r. 1922–69) Naruka; Mahārājā Vinay Singh (1815–57) Scindia: Mahārājā Madho Rao (1886–1925)

list of illustrations List of Illustrations

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List of Illustrations

Map

Rajasthan xxii



Figures

0.1

Chatrī of Mahārājā Madho Rao Scindia at Shivpuri (former state of Gwalior), marble and semi-precious stone, commissioned by Jivaji Rao Scindia in the early-twentieth century 2 Chatrī bagh, Merta, Rajasthan 3 Thākur chatrī bagh, Chomu, Rajasthan 14 “Hero stone” (funerary stele) of Rao Shia of Marwar (d. 1273) 17 Chatrī of Rājā Man Singh Kachhwaha of Amber, commissioned by Rājā Bhao Singh, early-seventeenth century 40 Recessed niches on the interior drum of Man Singh’s chatrī showing a painting of a bottle 42 Jagat Shiromani temple built during the reign of Rājā Man Singh Kachhwaha, Amber, view facing west 45 Pillar side facing exterior of Garuda maṇḍapa with relief of woman, Jagat Shiromani temple 47 Pillar facing interior of Garuda maṇḍapa with relief of woman nursing, Jagat Shiromani temple 48 Chatrī of Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II, commissioned by Mahārājā Ishwari Singh, 1740’s, Gaitor, Jaipur 53 Elephant fight, relief on the base of the chatrī if Sawai Jai Singh II 54 Game of satmarī, relief on the base of Sawai Jai Singh II’s chatrī 55 Relief on the base of Sawai Jai Singh II’s chatrī 55 Pillar facing interior of Sawai Jai Singh’s chatrī with a relief of a woman nursing 57 Pillar facing interior of Sawai Jai Singh’s chatrī with relief of male figure holding a bottle and cup 58 Dancer fastening payal, bracket on the interior of Sawai Jai Singh II’s chatrī 59 Niche on interior drum of Sawai Jai Singh II’s chatrī with scenes from Krishnivite mythology 60 Ishwari Lat, Jaipur 62 Chatrī of Mahārājā Ishwari Singh, commissioned by Mahārājā Madho Singh I, Jaipur 63 Painting of Draupadi’s disrobing on Ishwari Singh’s chatrī with Ishwari Singh 64 Chatrī of Mahārājā Madho Singh I, late-eighteenth century, Gaitor, Jaipur 68 Chatrī of Sawai Prithvi Singh, commissioned by Mahārājā Pratap Singh, late-­eight­ eenth century, Gaitor, Jaipur 69 Chatrīs of Sawai Jai Singh (R.) and Sawai Ram Singh (commissioned by Mahārājā Madho Singh II, 1880’s), Gaitor, Jaipur 72

0.2 0.3 0.4 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19

xviii 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 2.1 2.2 2.3

2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8

2.9 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14

List Of Illustrations Detail of face of a prince playing satmarī on the base of Sawai Ram Singh’s chatrī 73 Chatrī of Sawai Madho Singh II, Commissioned by Mahārājā Man Singh II, 1920’s, Gaitor, Jaipur 76 Pillar base on upper level of Madho Singh II’s chatrī 79 Base of Sawai Madhi Singh II’s chatrī depicting the royal reentry into Jaipur. The procession has crossed the Sangeneri gate and is in front of the Hanuman ­temple 80 Parade of Madho Singh’s reentry into Jaipur passing through the Johari bazaar. Relief on the base of Sawai Madho Singh II’s chatrī 80 The royal reentry procession passes before the Hawa Mahal 81 Madho Singh II’s procession into Jaipur passing the Naya Mahal 81 Chatrī of Mahārājā Man Singh II, commissioned by Mahārājā Bhawani Singh, Gaitor, Jaipur 86 Chatrī of Madho Singh II’s Mahārāṇī, commissioned by Madho Singh II, in the zenānā chatrī bagh in Jaipur 89 Chatrī of Rao Rājā Bhaktawar Singh Naruka, commissioned by Maharao Rājā Vinay Singh, early-nineteenth century, Alwar 94 Chatrī of Ṭhākur Mohabat Singh Naruka of Macheri, Rajgarh (formerly Alwar), commissioned by Pratap Singh, late-eighteenth century 97 Mural panel in the interior of Mohabat Singh’s chatrī depicting a procession of Rajput soldiers carrying the Alwar state flag and members of Hanuman’s monkey army. The next sequential panel (Fig. 36) depicts Maratha troops marching to face them in battle 100 Maratha troops marching into battle toward Alwar troops, fresco section on the interior of the dome of Mohabat Singh’s chatrī 101 Mural section in Mohabat Singh’s chatī depicting a rāj tilak ceremony 102 Mural from the ambulatory of Mohabat Singh’s chatrī. The bottom register offers scenes of yogis, probably of the Dadu Panth sect 103 Chatrī of Pratap Singh Nuraka, Alwar, commissioned by Bhaktawar Singh, late-eighteenth century. Stone and paint 105 Relief panel from the interior of Bhaktawar Singh’s chatrī. In the upper right register female dancers entertain an enthroned king; in the register below is an elephant fight; in the upper left register is a wrestling match; in the center is a military precession with British troops carrying muskets at the bottom 108 Pāliyā in Bhaktawar Singh’s chatrī 109 Chatrī of Hanwant Singh, the Ṭhākur of Thana (Alwar), commissioned by Vinay Singh 111 Mural section in the interior of Hanwant Singh’s chatrī, depicting a British ­soldier  112 Mural panel in the interior of Hanwant Singh’s chatrī. Vinay Singh, pictured at center, is identifiable through an inscription above his head. Behind him is the Alwar City palace and Bhaktawar Singh’s chatrī, which Vinay Singh also commissioned 112 Chatrī of Vinay Singh, Alwar, commissioned by Maharao Rājā Sheodan Singh, second half of the nineteenth century. Stone and paint 113 Chatrī of Achariya Gulab Das at the Dadu Panth chatrī bagh, Narenia, second half of the twentieth century 118

List of Illustrations 2.15

2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 2.22 2.23 2.24 2.25 2.26

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7

3.8 3.9 3.10 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5

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Interior drum of Achariya Hari Ram’s chatrī, Narenia. As the figure in whose memory the cenotaph was built, Hari Ram (center) completes the portrait cycle of the former achariyas in the chatrī. On the right is a portrait of Dadu Dayal, the founder of the order. His image begins the portrait cycles in all of the Narenia chatrīs 119 Chatrī of Mahant Govind Das, Jaipur 120 Fresco panel depicting a procession and Dadu Dayal in dārbār (center right), interior of Govind Das’s chatrī 121 Chatrī of Rao Shardul Singh Shekawat of Parasrampura, Jhunjhunu, Shekawati, commissioned by his five sons 124 Mural section on the interior of the dome of Rao Shardul Singh’s chatrī 125 Courtyard in Seth Arjun Das Goenka’s havelī, Dhunload, Shekawati showing mural work 129 Mural section in the Goenka havelī in Dhunload. In the upper section Rajputs (identifiable through their turbans) drink alcohol and hold rifles 130 Chatrī of Ram Gopal Poddar, Ramgarh, Shekawati 132 Shiva shrine on the first floor of Ram Gopal Poddar’s chatrī 133 Monumental well at Ram Gopal Poddar’s chatrī 134 Mural section in a Baniya chatrī in Shekhawati. The upper register renders a well 135 Mural panel on the interior of the dome of Ram Gopal Poddar’s Chatrī. The upper and lower registers render scenes from Hindu mythology. The light-skinned male holding a rose who appears twice in the middle register is probably a European; the Marwari Baniyas came in contact with them in the urban centers where they relocated 135 Devals commemorating Jodha Rathore kings at the necropolis of Mandore, near Jodhpur, former kingdom of Marwar. Local stone 138 Chatrīs at Panch Kunda, the first Rathore chatrī bagh. Dating to approximately the mid-fifteenth to mid-sixteenth century, these are probably the earliest cenotaphs in Marwar 144 Ruined temple at Panch Kunda 145 Deval of Rao Maldev Jodha Rathore at Mandore, commissioned by Rao Udai Singh in 1583 147 Chatrī of Udai Singh, Mandore 148 Lintel in front of the garbha gṛha of Rao Maldev’s deval with an image of Ganesh 158 Shrine of Sri Guru Anna Maharaj’s samādhī, in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh (date unknown). The saint gave spiritual discourses to his devotees and died in this room. The bed upon which he died is surmounted by an honorific umbrella and his khiradhu are on the bed 164 Kedara Ragini, Pali (Marwar), dated 1623 167 Portrait of Udai Singh of Marwar by an anonymous Mughal painter, ca. 1580 168 Portrait of Gaj Singh of Marwar, ca. 1725-40 171 Deval of Mahārājā Jaswant Singh, Mandore necropolis, outside of Jodhpur, commissioned by Mahārājā Ajit Singh, late-seventeenth century 178 Ajit pol at the Mandore Jodha Rathore necropolis 182 Painting of Jaswant Singh of Marwar listening to music, ca. 1660 183 Painting of Ajit Singh of Marwar in procession, dated 1722 185 Posthumous painting of Ajit Singh, mid-eighteenth century 185

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4.6

Deval of Mahārājā Ajit Singh, commissioned by Mahārājā Abhai Singh, early-eighteenth century, Mandore 187 Interior of Ajit Singh’s deval 188 Interior of the dome in Ajit Singh’s deval 188 Lintel over garbha gṛha in Ajit Singh’s deval, Mandore 189 Vimāna of Ajit Singh’s deval 189 Detail on the vimāna on Ajit Singh’s deval depicting reliefs of figures from the Hindu pantheon. Bhairava is on the far right 190 Praṇāla on Ajit Singh’s deval 191 Painting of Abhai Singh watching a dance performance, Dalchand, ca. 1725 193 Chatrī commemorating either Abjay Singh or Bhakat Singh of Marwar, ­Mandore 194 Thaṛa of Mahārājā Man Singh of Jodhpur, mid-nineteenth century, commissioned by Mahārājā Takht Singh, Mandore 196 Interior of Man Singh’s thaṛa with a portrait of the memorialized king enthroned on a miniature throne draped in saffron colored cloth 197 The Maha Mandir in Jodhpur, commissioned by Man Singh 199 Enthroned image of Jullandharnath, Maha Mandir 200 Interior of Takhat Singh’s thaṛa, Mandore, commissioned by Mahārājā Jaswant Singh II, late-nineteenth century. Takhat Singh’s enthroned portrait is central; to the right is an enthroned portrait of Man Singh 201 Chatrī of Jaswant Singh II of Marwar, Jaswant Thaṛa necropolis, Jodhpur 203 Jaswant Thaṛa, the Jodha Rathore dynastic memorial shrine, early-twentieth century, Jodhpur 204 Interior of Jaswant Thaṛa. Jaswant Singh II’s portrait is central, flanked by two generations of his successors 210 Interior of Jaswant Thaṛa. Portrait photographs of the present king’s father and grandfather are draped in saffron textiles and enthroned in the center of the hall 211 Devi Kund Sagar, the Bika Rathore necropolis, Bikaner 214 Junagarh, the Bika Rathores’ second fort, begun under Rājā Rai Singh in the late-sixteenth century, Bikaner 216 The chatrī of Rao Bika of Bikaner, built under Mahārājā Ganga Singh in the early-twentieth century 219 Rao Bika’s devalī 220 Rao Kalyanmalmal’s devalī, Devi Kund Sagar 224 Rao Kalyamal’s chatrī 225 Satī hand prints on the exterior gate of Junagarh Fort, Bikaner. Those of Deep Kunwar are in the center 231 Rāj Kumar Mota Singh’s chatrī, Satī Mā Deep Kunwar’s temple, Devi Kund Sagar, commissioned by Mahārājā Surat Singh, 1820’s 233 Mota Singh’s devalī. Ganesh is at the apex 233 Chatrī of Mahārājā Surat Singh, commissioned by Mahārājā Ratan Singh, early-nineteenth century, Devi Kund Sagar 236 Surat Singh’s devalī 237 Chatrī, Pugal necropolis 239 Lalgarh Palace, Bikaner 241

4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.21 4.22 4.23 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13

List of Illustrations 5.14 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7

xxi

Dungar Singh’s memorial, Bikaner 244 View of Mahāsatiyā, the Sisodia chatrī bagh outside Udaipur 249 Detail of a painted genealogical scroll of the rulers of Mewar. Bapa Rawal stands before Harit Rishi in the upper right corner. Dated to 1730-40 254 Detail of a painted genealogical scroll of the rulers of Mewar. A satī is depicted in the central space cell on the right 255 Jagdish temple, Udaipur (Mewar) commissioned by Maharāṇā Jagat Singh, midseventeenth century 257 Worship of enshrined liṇga with three faces (probably Mahārāṇā Bhim Singh of Mewar worshipping Eklingji), painting ca. 1830 260 Photograph of the Eklingji temple, outside of Udaipur (Mewar). Directly before the temple’s main entrance, ­­­­­­i­­­­­­s the freestanding pavilion enshrining a sculpture of Bappa Rawal, who faces toward the garbha gṛha 260 Chatrī of Amar Singh, Mahāsatiyā, Udaipur, commissioned by Maharāṇā Karan Singh II, 1620’s 263 Interior of Amar Singh’s chatrī 268 Eklingji mūrti and the namūnā, interior of Amar Singh’s chatrī 269 Eastern side of Amar Singh’s namūnā with reliefs of the King and his satīs facing the Eklingji image 270 Amar Singh and his queens who became satīs performing liṅga pūjā on the northern side of the namūnā 271 Chatrī of Sangram Singh II, Mahāsatiyā, Udaipur, commissioned by Maharāṇā Jagat Singh II, first half of the eighteenth century 275 Chatrī of Shambu Singh, Mahāsatiyā, Udaipur, commissioned by Maharāṇā Sajjan Singh late-nineteenth century 277 Interior of Shambu Singh’s chatrī with Eklingji mūrti and recumbent Nandi 278 Chatrī of Rana Pratap, Chawand village, commissioned in 1938 by Mahārāṇā Bhopal Singh 278 Chatrī of Mahārājā Jayajirao Scindia, Gwalior, commissioned by Mahārājā Madho Rao Scindia, late-nineteenth century 284 Marble sculptures of Daulat Rao Scindia and his wives in his chatrī. Early-nineteenth century 285 Priest performing evening worship in Madho Rao Scindia’s chatrī, Shivpuri 287 Samādhi of Mahārājā Ranjit Singh, Lahore. Begun under Kharak Singh in 1839 and completed in 1848, during the regency of Dalip Singh 288 Samādhi of Ranjit Singh in Lahore’s Mughal core by the Mughal Fort and Badshahi Mosque 292 White marble pavilion in Ranjit Singh’s samadhī, which enshrined vessels containing the mahārājā’s cremated ashes and those of his satīs 293 Chatrī marking the cremation and memory of Rajput and Sikh soldiers who fought in the British army in World War I, South Downs, Sussex, England. Begun under Sir John Otter, early-twentieth century 296

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Rajasthan. Map by Chetan Tiwari.

Introduction: Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas Introduction

1

Introduction: Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas In 1925 the mahārājā (king) of the Indian state of Gwalior, Madho Rao Scindia, died suddenly in Paris while en route to London.1 He was cremated at PèreLachaise Cemetery, and his ashes were promptly conveyed back to India in state. The urn containing his ashes was transported in a private train to Marseilles, where it was ensconced in a private stateroom on an ocean liner the Scindia darbār (court) hired exclusively for the journey. The royal remains were met at the dock in Bombay with full military honors. Several Indian princes and citizens of Gwalior made the trip to pay their condolences. The urn was then transported from Bombay in a private car on a specially ordered train, which made a stop at each state capital en route to Gwalior, allowing the state’s ruler to pay his respects and take a final darśan (viewing) of the ashes. After arriving in Gwalior, the urn was conveyed by a traditional śav yātrā (funerary cortege) to the Scindia necropolis at Shivpuri, some thirty miles away. Finally, Madho Rao’s ashes were re-cremated at Shivpuri in a full Hindu dāh saṃskāra (ritual of last rites) ceremony. At each stage along the somber journey, the presence of Madho Rao’s son and heir, Jivaji Rao, was conspicuous.2 Nearly a decade later, Madho Rao’s white-marble chatrī (cenotaph), which Jivaji Rao commissioned, was completed on the exact site where the second cremation was held and where a portion of his ashes was interred in the ground (Fig. 0.1).3 The final journey of Madho Rao Scindia’s earthly remains and the events that occurred along the way shine considerable light on understandings of death, performances of lineage and political authority, and the role of funerary architecture in princely north India. Why did the Scindia darbār go to such lengths to convey the king’s cremated ashes across the world, all the while extending to them the same respect they would an uncremated corpse? Several dignitaries even came to have a final darśan with the mahārājā, as they would with a corpse in a traditional royal Hindu śav yatrā. It was clearly of the upmost importance that Madho Rao be laid to rest in his home state, in proximity to 1 Specific titles for kings vary throughout India and over time. The Sanskrit titles rājā and mahārājā are the most common for non-Muslim Indian rulers. 2 Miscellaneous File, Bundle 138–274, no. 15 (1925), and Miscellaneous File, Bundle 59, no. 4 (1925), Scindia State Archives. Clippings from Jayaji Pratap (Gwalior), June 11, June 25, July 9, 1925. 3 Interview with Ashok Kumar Mohite, who has been the administrative officer at the royal Scindia necropolis at Shivpuri for over three decades (April 4, 2007).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004300569_002

2

Introduction

Figure 0.1 Chatrī of Mahārājā Madho Rao Scindia at Shivpuri ( former state of Gwalior), marble and semi-precious stone, commissioned by Jivaji Rao Scindia in the early-twentieth century

his ancestors, and that his remains be marked by a permanent architectural structure. A major factor in the treatment of Madho Rao’s ashes was the performance of political legitimacy. In princely India, political legitimacy was bolstered by dynastic lineage. Jivaji Rao’s presence at all these highly performative stages of his father’s final journey reiterated the line of descent and authority from father to son, as it did (and continues to do) in royal funerary corteges and necropolises across north India. This anecdote describing Madho Rao’s extraordinary last journey succinctly demonstrates the significance of funerary rituals and memorials in royal India and the perceived necessity of making ancestry and political authority a permanent feature in the built environment. Chatrīs are an integral component of the visual vocabulary of north Indian Hindu kingship, and Madho Rao’s life and death would have been incomplete had he not been commemorated with one. Beyond this, the chatrī entwines Scindia lineage, and the unbroken transference of political authority, with the urban fabric of the land his dynasty ruled. This book is concerned with the chatrīs commissioned by the Rajputs, members of a Hindu jātī (subcaste) that is part of the wider martial and

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

3

figure 0.2 Chatrī bagh, Merta, Rajasthan

aristocratic Kshatriya varṇ (caste). Madho Rao’s dynasty, the Scindias, belong to the Maratha jātī, another Kshatriya subcaste. However, from the late-fifteenth century to the present, Kshatriya funerary art in north India has been informed by very similar social and political concerns. Moreover, as will be examined in the conclusion, the Scindias, like other Maratha dynasties, modeled the practice of memorializing their ancestors with chatrīs and other funerary traditions after those popularized by the Rajputs. Chatrīs are a prevalent feature in the dusty, arid tracts of land between the mushrooming metropolises of the north Indian state of Rajasthan (Fig. 0.2). Each of the several hundred often monumental and lavishly carved and/or painted chatrīs found throughout the state marks a location where a Rajput king or aristocrat was cremated, a portion of his ashes interred in the ground,

4

Introduction

and where he is subsequently memorialized and sometimes worshipped. Typically, chatrīs take the form of pillared and domed stone pavilions, although as demonstrated by Madho Rao’s and several Rajput chatrīs that feature in this book, they may also be enclosed in forms that approximate temples. Centrally located within many chatrīs is a stone stele most commonly known as a devalī. These offer reliefs of the memorialized king and his satī (a woman who selfimmolated on her husband’s cremation pyre), or satīs, and an inscription naming the king and noting his regnal dates and lineage. Some chatrīs contain a pāliyā, a marble slab with reliefs of footprints signifying the deceased. Still others are empty. In the fifteenth century, the Rajputs appropriated from the Indo-Islamic tomb tradition the practice of memorializing their ancestors with permanent architectural structures.4 By the seventeenth century, commissioning a chatrī had become a seminal performance of Rajput kingship and legitimate political power. The Rajputs were so successful at establishing the chatrī as a metonym for land ownership and political sovereignty that in the eighteenth century new, self-appointed royal communities in north India, such as the Marathas and the Sikhs, also appropriated the chatrī to announce the validity of their rule. With the creation of the nation of India in 1947, the Rajput kingdoms were dissolved and subsumed into the modern state of Rajasthan (and to a lesser extent Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Uttarakand), and the Rajput royal families were officially divested of their political powers.5 However, to this day Rajputs of royal lineage unofficially retain their royal titles and court ceremonies, and within their erstwhile kingdoms still command immense social prestige. Rajputs also continue to build chatrīs. As with the Indo-Islamic tombs, it was and remains the prerogative and responsibility of a new Rajput king to commission a chatrī for his father, the previous king. In addition to honoring their fathers, these memorial commissions have frequently been manipulated by Rajput kings to convey aspects 4 Throughout this study, I refer to the semiotic definition of “appropriation,” which Robert S. Nelson gives as “a distortion, not a negation of the prior semiotic assemblage. When successful, it maintains but shifts the former connotation to create the new sign and accomplishes all this covertly, making the process appear ordinary or natural.” Nelson also identifies appropriation as integrally associated with “the active agents of signification.” This is in marked contrast to terms such as “influence,” which are more passive and elide the question of agency. “Appropriation,” in Critical Terms of Art History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 163–64, 172. 5 It is unclear why the Rajputs of what is now Rajasthan were by far the most active chatrī builders.

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

5

of their own public identity to an audience of courtiers, subjects, Rajputs of other dynasties, and outsiders such as Mughals, the British, and, most recently, citizens of independent India. Particularly in times of political or social crisis, Rajputs have exploited the architectural forms and decorative programs of their chatrīs to announce the value of their rule and, frequently, to rewrite or even fabricate selective events from their past. This book is a socio-historical examination of the chatrī traditions of five former Rajput kingdoms: Amber and Jaipur, Alwar, Marwar, Bikaner, and Mewar. It reads the chatrīs’ formal and decorative developments against contemporaneous events from the fifteenth century to the present and is particularly concerned with examples of abrupt and radical shifts in chatrī iconography, form, decoration, and construction materials. A single Rajput chatrī bagh (literally “garden of chatrīs,” a necropolis) may offer a variety of architectural forms, decorative motifs, and materials that reflects significant changes over time. When read against the historical milieus in which the chatrīs were constructed, it is apparent that such deviations were their patron’s response to a crisis that threatened him personally or his kingdom. One of the most common of these Rajput responses to crises was to commission a chatrī that exhibits what Michael Meister and M.A. Dhaky term a “renaissant style.”6 Meister and Dhaky employ this term in their analyses of sacred architecture, and I use it to understand similar archaizing trends in chatrīs. Chatrī patrons employed renaissant styles to associate themselves and their dynasties with a particular glorious moment in the past. Renaissant styles were also co-opted to simultaneously unite a dynasty (or all Rajputs) into an “imagined community” with a shared history and religious beliefs and, by extension, to exclude outsiders who did not share that history and culture—particularly the Mughals and the British. In their visual appropriations of the past, Rajput chatrī patrons participated in a well-established royal practice that existed throughout the subcontinent for centuries prior to the establishment of the chatrī tradition.7 6

7

Michael Meister, “Art Regions and Modern Rajasthan,” in The Idea of Rajasthan: Explorations in Regional Identity, Karine Schomer et al. eds. (New Delhi: Manohar, 2001), 166. M.A. Dhaky, “Renaissance and the Late Maru-Gurjara Temple Architecture,” in Western Indian Art, ed. Umakant Premanand Shah and Kalyankumar Ganguli (Calcutta: Indian Society of Oriental Art, 1966), 4–22. There is in a long history of politically informed appropriations of the past in South Asia, in terms both of archaized styles and spolia. Rulers of Vijayanagara and the Adil Shahi sultans of Bijapur used spolia from imperial Kalyana Chalukya structures to communicate that they were the Chalukyas’ political heirs in the Deccan. See Phillip B. Wagoner, “Reviving the Chalukyan Past: the Politics of Architectural Reuse in the Sixteenth-Century

6

Introduction

In many cases, chatrī patrons appropriated these renaissant styles from a specific building, such as a dynastic temple, around which their community could rally. In light of their capacity to reference the past, it is useful to examine the chatrīs’ intertextual relationships with specific buildings in relation to Pierre Nora’s notion of lieu de mémoire, which he defines as “any significant entity, whether material or non-material in nature, which by dint of human will or the work of time has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any community.”8 More precisely, it may be understood as a site “where [cultural] memory crystallizes and secretes itself.”9 Nora draws his examples of lieux de mémoire exclusively from the modern French context and examines them in relation to the creation of French nationalism and communal memory. However, the concept may similarly be applied to other groups’ communal identities and collective memories, from various historical eras, including historical personages, festivals, and memorials. Nora’s lieux de mémoire all possess a common memorial function of uniting the community through a shared sense of social identity and values, which then inspire national sentiment (in the French case, “la République”).10 Nora asserts that such lieux de mémoire involve self-conscious, performative, almost sentimental displays of communal identity and unity, the need for which arises precisely because milieux de mémoire (customs, rituals, and traditions) are no longer practiced.11 Chatrīs and their associated rituals are, by the nature of their exclusivity, lieux de mémoire for the ancestors of the commemorated and the entire Rajput community. Chatrīs may also be understood to fulfill Nora’s claim vis-à-vis the relationship of the lieux de mémoire with milieux de mémoire, though in the Rajput case the milieux de mémoire are not forgotten, nor

8 9 10 11

Deccan,” South Asian Studies 23 (2007), which also offers several other examples of architectural revival through spoliation in South Asia. Rulers of the late-twelfth to early-thirteenth century Ghurid and fourteenth century Tughluq sultanates stressed legitimizing ties to the wider Islamic world through the use of archaized formal, decorative, and epigraphic programs, while concomitantly incorporating spolia in the form of Mauryan and Gupta pillars into their commissions to express their ability to rule the same lands these earlier kings governed. Anthony Welch, “Architectural Patronage and the Past: The Tughluq Sultans of India,” Muqarnas 10 (1993). Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past. Vol. 1: Conflicts and Divisions, ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 17. Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations 26 (Spring 1989): 7. Nancy Wood, “Memories’ Remains: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” History and Memory 6 (1994): 123–24. Ibid., 127.

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

7

have they passively disappeared. Traditions and practices, particularly satī, which signified the honor and prestige of a Rajput king and his dynasty were eradicated by the British Raj, thereby fundamentally altering Rajput mortuary traditions. With the removal of such milieux de mémoire, Rajput patrons of these lieux de mémoire (chatrīs) often compensated by incorporating more elaborate, and often archaized, forms and decorations into their commissions. Politically motivated appropriation from communal lieux de mémoire will be examined in relation to the chatrīs of the Kachhwahas of Jaipur in the eighteenth century, the Jodha Rathores of Mewar in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, and the Sisodias of Mewar from the seventeenth century to present. In such cases, the task is to determine the crisis that bedeviled the chatrī patron and to identify specifically which bygone time and space he sought to associate with, and why. Another concern of this book is how chatrīs functioned as architectural spaces of resistance and defiance at historical moments when, due to the political situation in north India, artistic patronage was one of the only arenas left in which the Rajputs could voice their protest. As will be demonstrated particularly through the renaissant-style cenotaphs in Mewar, Rajputs have consistently used their chatrīs as spaces to address crises that threatened them as a community. These moments include being forced to ally with the Mughals in the sixteenth century, Maratha invasions in the eighteenth, the rise of the Raj in the mid-nineteenth, and finally the creation of independent India and the dissolution of the princely states and their kings’ titles and power in 1947. As demonstrated particularly through several Kachhwaha examples in Jaipur, Rajputs also used their chatrīs to respond to threats, such as succession skirmishes, that challenged their individual dynasties. What emerges when we subject chatrīs constructed during such times of crisis to close scrutiny are patterns of denial promoted through the chatrīs’ formal and decorative programs. The largest and most elaborate Rajput chatrīs, which were constructed of the costliest materials and whose renaissant forms and decoration allude to a glorious past, were frequently designed with the intent to belie the patron’s political reality. The trend that emerged throughout the Rajput courts was that a new king who ascended his throne uncontested would commission a chatrī for his father that did not deviate from the formal and decorative style of the chatrī the previous ruler, his father, had commissioned. This was one way of communicating a smooth, unchallenged transfer of power and the new king’s intention of maintaining established policies. By contrast, when there was disruption in the political organization, such as an adoption from a distantly related noble house or a forced alliance with an outside power, chatrī patrons often em-

8

Introduction

ployed more strident means of exploiting the sign to signify their right to the power they tenuously wielded. Finally, because arts of different media often work in concert to promote aspects of their patron’s identity, this book also reads chatrīs against contemporaneous examples of court painting and palace architecture.

An Indic Iconography of Extraordinariness: Umbrellas in South Asian Art

The Rajputs are the hereditary warriors and rulers of north India in the Hindu caste system. The domed and pillared form of most chatrīs, as well as their name, is therefore deeply meaningful. In north Indian languages, chatrī means “umbrella,” which is appropriate, as umbrellas are metonyms for political and religious authority in South Asia. Just as a crown signifies a European king’s supremacy, serving as a metonym for his kingdom and powers of office, the umbrella conveys these notions in traditional Indic kingship. For millennia, umbrellas have sheltered South Asian kings of various faiths, in public processions and enthroned in darbār, as they do images of the divine in temples. According to what I refer to as the “Indic iconography of extraordinariness,” umbrellas announce the king’s divine right to his earthly power and establish this icon as an integral component of the Indic visual vocabulary of kingship. This metonomy between umbrellas and Indic kingship is underscored by several popular epithets for rulers that engage in variations on the word and concept of chatrī. A peshwa (prime minister) of the Maratha Confederacy (1630–1818) was honorably referred to as a chatrpatī (literally “one who commands an umbrella”), one worthy to sit under the umbrella of rulership: an ideal king. Kshatriyas are frequently referred to as chatrīs, while a Rajput may also be commonly referred to as chatraput (son of a chatra), indicating his aristocratic status.12 As these epithets indicate, the relationship between the sign (umbrella) and the signified (Indic kingship) is so intimate that the two are fused into one: the king becomes the umbrella of his office. In many cases, the umbrellas the leaders of Rajput royal houses command are integral to their legitimizing origin myths. For example, the Bhatis of Jaisalmer are also known as chatra Yadavpatīs (sons of Yadavs, possessors of the celestial umbrella),13 referring to the mytho-historical moment in the dy12 13

Chatra is a more Sanskritic term for umbrella. The Bhatis’ original clan name was Yadav, reflecting their descent from their divine ancestor, Krishna, who was the first of the Yaduvanshis (members of the Yadu or Yadav clan).

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

9

nasty’s history when their divine ancestor Krishna bestowed upon them the celestial umbrella of Indra, the Sky God, known as the meghḍambar chatrī.14 What is held to be the very same umbrella has crowned generations of Bhati kings in darbārs and during public processions. The meghḍambar chatrī is such a potent signifier of the Bhati king’s divine ordination that it features on the Bhati clan flag, in royal monograms, and as a decorative motif throughout the Jaisalmer Fort.15 The Rajput funerary chatrīs mimic the umbrella form and reference its meanings of rulership and sacrality. Living Rajput kings were crowned by an honorific umbrella, and in death they are sheltered by a stone umbrella.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King! “Invented Tradition” and Memorialization in North Indian Kingship

In the late-twelfth and early-thirteenth centuries, the Ghurid and Mamluk sultanates established the first permanent political Islamic presence in South Asia and introduced the practice of tomb building from the Islamic courts in Central Asia. As in those lands, the tomb in South Asia was quickly instated as a metonym signifying dynastic continuity, political legitimacy, wealth, and Islamic kingship. Royal and Sufi tombs remain visual testaments to Islam’s power and presence. In addition to sheltering the interred corpse and establishing political and spiritual legitimacy, tombs fulfilled territorial functions, assisting their patrons in the symbolic appropriation of land. Tombs in Islamic India functioned in the same way Oleg Grabar and Finbarr Barry Flood argue early mosques and other Islamic sectarian structures visually operated.16 They enabled their patrons to carve out exclusive royal Muslim space in a religiously pluralistic land. The prevalence of chatrīs throughout Rajasthan suggests that their construction is an ancient Rajput practice. However, Rajputs only began building chatrīs after sustained contact with the Indo-Islamic courts. Prior to that time, 14 15

16

Hari Singh Bhati, A Pre-Medieval History: Annals of Jaisalmer (Bikaner: Kavi Prakashan, 2002), 447. For more on how Bhati funerary art references the meghḍambar chatrī and their origin myths, see Melia Belli Bose, “Ancestors of the Moon: Bhati Mytho-history and Memorial Art at Baṛā Bagh, Jaisalmer,” Artibus Asiae (forthcoming). Finbarr Barry Flood, “Appropriation as Inscription,” in Reuse Value: Spolia and Appropriation in Art and Architecture from Constantine to Sherrie Levine, eds. Richard Brilliant and Dale Kinney (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 127. Oleg Grabar, “The Symbolic Appropriation of the Land,” in The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven: Yale, 1987).

10

Introduction

Rajputs did not have a tradition of commemorating their ancestors through permanent architectural memorials. As tomb patronage became associated with Indo-Islamic kingship and territorial expansion, the Rajputs could not have misunderstood its messages. They adopted and adapted the Indo-Islamic practice of commemorating their ancestors in permanent structures, transforming the sign from tomb into chatrī. Under their patronage, concepts exclusive to Hinduism and the Rajput community were engrafted to the royal and territorial notions signified by the tomb, while the exclusively Islamic element was expunged. Similar to Nora’s explication of lieu de mémoire is Eric Hobsbawm’s observation that when faced with abrupt and rapid change or threats to the social order, societies invent traditions, devising new rules, customs, and ceremonials. Such “invented traditions” … seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past. In fact, where possible, they normally attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past.17 Both Nora and Hobsbawm note that in these circumstances a particular past is isolated and manipulated to serve political or social ends. Places, rituals, and built forms (such as chatrīs) are made integral to social identity and communal belonging. At the historic moment when their authority, wealth, land, religion, and identity were threatened by sultanate expansion, Rajputs appropriated one of their rivals’ most politically charged signs, the tomb, to signify the same concepts of legitimate authority in relation to their own public selves. In fact, Rajputs invented the tradition of commemoration through chatrīs very quickly. By at least the late-sixteenth century, all the major Rajput courts were participating in chatrī building, even the Sisodias of Mewar, who consistently remained politically and culturally aloof from the Indo-Islamic courts. That the Sisodias, too, eventually adopted the chatrī tradition indicates that for the Rajputs there was nothing inherently Islamic, either politically or religiously, about architectural funerary memorials. For certain Rajput dynasties at specific historic moments, such as the Sisodias and the Jodha Rathores of Marwar, the invention of the chatrī tradition should be understood as a political re-

17

Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1.

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

11

sponse to Indo-Islamic incursions and the Rajput patrons’ perceived need to lay claim to their land. However, chatrīs do not categorically convey Rajput resistance and reaction to the Islamic courts. Certain chatrīs announce their patron’s cosmopolitanism and imperial alliances. Such is the case with the sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury Kachhwaha chatrīs and those of the Bika Rathores of Bikaner. By this time the majority of the Rajput dynasties had allied with the Mughals and their kings were spending much time at the imperial court, where they were exposed to Mughal art and performances of kingship, such as the construction of mausoleums. For many Rajputs, the act of commissioning a chatrī announced, as did the memorials’ styles and decoration, that their patrons were arbiters of imperial taste who enjoyed privileged positions at court. In fact, certain Rajput kings built their grandest chatrīs in the late-sixteenth to earlyseventeenth centuries, most likely after experiencing the monumental tomb Mughal emperor Akbar commissioned for his father, Humayun, in Delhi. Among others, Catherine Asher,18 Finbarr Barry Flood,19 D. Fairchild Ruggles,20 Allison Busch,21 and Molly Emma Aitken22 have investigated how royal Hindu and Indo-Islamic friendships, as well as diplomatic, military, and marital alliances, served as conduits through which architectural, painting, linguistic, and literary traditions were widely circulated. These scholars locate early modern royal Indian art in a pluralistic milieu, identifying it as a product of cultural translation and appropriation. This book similarly considers key chatrīs as an expression of Mughal-Rajput and Rajput-colonial social and cultural interaction.

18

19 20 21 22

Catherine Asher, Architecture of Mughal India (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1992); “The Architecture of Raja Man Singh: A Study in Sub-Imperial Patronage,” in The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, ed. Barbara Stoller Miller (Oxford University Press, 1992); “Authority, Victory and Commemoration: The Temples of Raja Man Singh,” Journal of Vaishnava Studies 3, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 25–36; “Kachhwaha Pride and Prestige: The Temple Patronage of Raja Man Singh,” in Govindadeva: A Dialogue in Stone, ed. Margaret Case (New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 1996), 215–38. Finbarr Barry Flood, Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). D. Fairchild Ruggles, “At the Margins of Architectural and Landscape History: The Rajputs of South Asia,” Muqarnas 30, no. 1 (2013): 95–117. Allison Busch, Poetry of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). Molly Emma Aitken, “The Laud Ragamala Album, Bikaner, and the Sociability of Subimperial Painting,” Archives of Asian Art 63, no. 1 (2013), 27–58.

12

Introduction

Like the Indo-Islamic tombs that inspired them, chatrīs are typically constructed by the son and new king, or by a ṭhākur or jagīrdār (member of the landed Rajput nobility), for his father who held the title before him. Also in common with memorial traditions throughout time and around the world, including the sultanate and Mughal tombs, chatrīs are constructed as much for the living patron as for the memorialized deceased. That is, the chatrīs’ architectural, decorative, and ritual programs often reveal more about how their patrons sought to construct their own public identities and assert their legitimacy through descent from the previous king, than they do about the lives and identities of those they commemorate. In relation to the Mughal tombs, Michael Brand aptly notes that Humayan, Akbar, and Jahangir were all entombed in structures built by their sons and successors … In this context it might be asked whether Mughal tombs were really erected to commemorate dead emperors or as victory monuments for the survivors of internecine warfare.23 Ruggles makes a similar claim about Mughal tomb gardens: Ultimately what is represented in a tomb-garden is not an individual, either as himself or an institution, but rather one link in a dynastic chain. The garden is about sovereignty, and the mausoleum is about dynasty.24 Surely inspired by the Mughal tombs, Rajput chatrīs fulfill similar legitimizing strategies for their patrons. The Rajputs appropriated from the Indo-Islamic courts not only the practice of commemorating their predecessors through the medium of permanent architecture; the chatrīs’ typically domed and pillared form also reflects IndoIslamic architectural traditions. For example, the domes of many of the tombs of the Delhi sultans are ringed with diminutive chatrīs, which may be the precursors of the Rajput funerary memorials. Once the practice of memorialization through permanent built form was adopted from the Indo-Islamic courts, it had to be adapted to conform to Rajput sectarian requirements, ideologies, and political aspirations. Rajputs are not only Hindu; they are Kshatriyas, hereditary high- ranking rulers and 23 24

Michael Brand, “Orthodoxy, Innovation, and Revival,” Muqarnas 10 (1993): 332. D. Fairchild Ruggles, “Humayun’s Tomb and Garden: Typologies and Visual Order,” in Gardens in the Time of the Great Muslim Empires: Theory and Design, ed. Attilio Petruccioli (Leiden: Brill, 1997): 177–78.

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

13

warriors. As members of a community whose dharm (religious and socially sanctioned duty) includes not only ruling but also safeguarding their subjects and culture, it is incumbent upon Rajputs to advertise their social position, of which the Hindu religion is a salient component. Hinduism has very different mortuary practices from Islam, the most basic relating to the disposal of the corpse: cremation in the case of the former, burial for the latter. Accordingly, while Islamic tombs are erected directly above the interred corpse, chatrīs mark the location where the person commemorated was cremated and a portion of the ashes interred in the ground. The importance of constructing the chatrī directly over the exact location of the cremation is illustrated by a letter written on behalf of Maji Shri Jaleji, the rājmātā (dowager queen and mother of the present king) of Marwar, to the British resident commissioner in Jodhpur, dated 24 April, 1923.25 In it, the rājmātā expresses concern that the chatrī of her husband, the late king, has been incorrectly located and does not mark the place of his dāh saṃskāra. As the actual spot of the cremation is consequently left exposed, people and animals walk over it, which is disrespectful. She requests that funds be allotted to reconstruct the chatrī at the correct location. The rājmātā’s letter indicates that among a chatrī’s basic functions are marking a physical place for memory, establishing a sacred space associated with the person it commemorates, and protecting that space from the profane. Rajput chatrī baghs are dynastic and serve to visually reaffirm, in public space, the dynasty’s continuity. Typically, a son’s chatrī is erected next to his father’s, thereby visually mapping lineage. In many cases, however, commemorated died far from his home kingdom—for example, while on a military campaign—and his dāh saṃskāra was not performed at the royal dynastic śmaśān (cremation ground). Among the martial Rajputs in times prior to rapid transport, such occasions were frequent. The deceased was then often commemorated with two chatrīs: one at the distant site of his dāh saṃskāra, and the other in the dynastic chatrī bagh in his home kingdom, next to his ancestors’ chatrīs. A portion of his cremated ashes was placed in the ground beneath the second cenotaph. The purpose of erecting the second chatrī was to physically and visually associate the former king with the land he ruled and the past and future generations of his family.

25

Public Works Department (PWD), Mehkma Khas, File 271 (1903), “Marble Cenotaph Buildings,” 81, Government of Jodhpur, Archives . The PWD was established by the Raj in the late-nineteenth century in each of the princely states to oversee and fund the construction of monuments (including chatrīs) and public conveniences.

14

Introduction

figure 0.3 Thākur chatrī bagh, Chomu, Rajasthan

Chatrī baghs were originally located at the edges of inhabited areas, outside urban centers, in accordance with Hindu perceptions of death as taboo and ritually polluting. In most cases, they are situated to the south of the royal forts, as that direction is associated with death. Lone chatrīs also punctuate the Rajasthani countryside, marking the site where a Rajput who died while on campaign had his dāh saṃskāra. However, as space is now at a premium in urban India, settlements have begun to encroach on both the chatrī baghs and the memorials that once stood alone in the wilderness. As with royal Islamic tombs and Sufi graves, many chatrīs are now interwoven into the urban fabric of Rajasthani cities (Fig. 0.3). Chatrīs are also frequently located in and around Rajput forts, commemorating the site where a warrior fell while protecting it during an enemy siege.

Origins of the Chatrī

Textual, archaeological, and ethnographic evidence strongly suggest a definite period and source of origin for the Rajput practice of commemorating ancestors through permanent architectural structures. Rajputs did have an architectural memorial tradition prior to the fifteenth century, but the structures were

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

15

built of ephemeral materials. They were not intended to be permanent, and this is a critical distinction. The fact that Brahmanical texts are silent on the subject of funerary architecture is an important clue in support of the chatrīs’ Indo-Islamic origins. In fact, seminal texts strongly advocate that after cremation all traces of the body be removed from the world of the living. No mention is made of architectural memorials in the Vastu shastra, which addresses various types of buildings. The Shatapatha Brahamana is similarly silent on this matter. As this text is particularly concerned with mortuary rituals and honoring the ancestors, it would surely mention such structures, had they existed. The Garuda Purana, the foremost Hindu eschatological text, outlines the treatment of the corpse. It prescribes how, before the conclusion of the requisite twelve days of mourning, the cremated ashes should be taken to the Ganges and ritually immersed in the river. The text mentions nothing about leaving any portion of the ashes behind. On the contrary, the corporeal remains are to be completely disposed of, to prevent the soul from associating with and clinging to its former body.26 The Arthaveda funeral liturgy similarly decrees that nothing of the deceased’s corporeal existence be left behind after death.27 That the topics of funerary architecture and the preservation of any part of the cremated ashes are conspicuously absent from religious and secular literature that predates the Islamic era in South Asia suggests that such traditions were not practiced in that period. The archaeological record similarly indicates that before contact with the Indo-Islamic courts, Rajputs did not have a tradition of commemorating their ancestors through permanent built forms. In fact, it appears that Rajputs only began constructing chatrīs approximately two centuries after exposure to the Islamic practice of tomb building. Dynasties such as the Jodha Rathores (the Marwar/Jodhpur branch of the Rathore dynasty) appear to have adopted the tradition during the sultanate era (late-twelfth to early-sixteenth centuries), probably sometime in the fifteenth century. Others, such as the Kachhwahas of Amber, came to the tradition much later and appear to have begun chatrī construction only during the early Mughal era (mid-sixteenth century). Considering the extensive and reasonably well-preserved archaeological remains of 26 27

Jonathan Parry, “The Last Sacrifice,” in Death in Banaras (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 151–88. David M. Knipe, “Sapiṇḍīkaraṇa: The Hindu Rite of Entry into Heaven,” in Religious Encounters with Death: Insights from the History and Anthropology of Religion, eds. Frank E. Reynolds and Earle H. Waugh (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1973), 111–24.

16

Introduction

sites such as the ruined fort of Mandore (near Jodhpur, ca. seventh to fourteenth century) it seems unlikely that had there been a chatrī tradition prior to the sultanate era no trace of it would survive in the archaeological record. While chatrīs have their genesis in the Indo-Islamic tomb tradition, there are several examples of permanent architectural memorials in India that predate the Islamic political presence. Extant examples of funerary structures that developed independent of Islamic influence include the Buddhist stūpa, found in areas northeast and west of Rajasthan; the thadagem (cenotaph/temple) in Goa; and stone cairns and funerary temples in South India.28 Two examples of Hindu structures conceptually analogous to the type of chatrī that approximates a temple in its architectural form (such as those built by the Jodha Rathores in Marwar between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries) are also extant. The first is the group of tenth- to twelfth-century Chola Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh that serve concomitantly as funerary memorials. Several of these temples offer inscriptions proclaiming that they are a pallipadai, literally “a memorial sepulchral [or tomb] temple.”29 The second is a Shiva temple in Bhojpur, Madhya Pradesh, commissioned by the Paramara emperor Bhoja around 1000, which some argue is also his funerary temple.30 The only examples of Rajasthani funerary architecture that predate contact with the Indo-Islamic courts are stone cairns commemorating tribal chieftains. A vast temporal and spatial distance separates stūpas, pallipadais, thadagems, Bhoja’s temple, and the Rajput chatrīs. The literature on the pallipadais and Bhoja’s temple unfortunately does not elucidate the precise meaning and functions of these structures—are they cenotaphs that mark the site of the cremation of the memorialized, like the chatrīs? We do know that apart from 28

29

30

The tradition of constructing thadagems (royal Goan crematory memorials) predates the Indo-Islamic period. These structures are centrally planned, with enclosing walls and tiered roofs resembling śikharas. See Gritli V. Mitterwallner, “Testimonials of Heroism: Memorial Stones and Structures,” in Goa: Cultural Patterns, ed. Saryu Doshi (Mumbai: Marg, 1983), 41–52. Stone-lined mortuary chambers (first for bones that had been previously exposed, then after the practice of cremation was adopted, for ashes) are found throughout South India and date from approximately 200 bce to 200 CE. See, among others: T.N. Ramachandran, “Mamallapuram,” Marg 23, no. 3 (1970): 5. S.R. Balasubrahmanyam, Early Chola Temples: Parantaka I to Rajaraja I ad 907–985 (Bombay: Orient Longman, 1971), 101. For further examples of Chola pallipadai, see ibid., 90–92, 101–3, 117–18, 213, 217, 232–33; and Balasubrahmanyam, Middle Chola Temples: Rajaraja I to Kulottunga I ad 985–1070 (Faridabad: Thompson, 1975), 269–72. Kirit Mankodi, “Scholar-Emperor and a Funerary Temple: Eleventh Century Bhojpur,” in Royal Patrons and Great Temple Art, ed. Vidya Dehejia (Mumbai: Marg, 1988).

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

17

figure 0.4 “Hero stone” ( funerary stele) of Rao Shia of Marwar (d.1273)

the Paramaras, none of the patrons of these memorials was Rajput. The forms of stūpas, pallipadais, and Bhoja’s temple are also markedly different from that of the typical chatrī. These factors combine to overwhelmingly disqualify these building types as primary sources of the Rajput chatrī tradition. While the Rajputs appropriated the concept of memorialization through permanent built forms from Indo-Islamic tombs, they had already, prior to contact with the sultanates and Mughals, commissioned funerary markers intended to be permanent (Fig. 0.4). Royal and martyred Rajput warriors were traditionally commemorated with steles bearing low-relief images of the deceased male, frequently accompanied by icons of satīs. Commonly referred to in ­English as a “hero stone,” this kind of stele is known in Rajasthani languages

18

Introduction

as a govardhān or devalī.31 The steles take two different forms: either square planned and several feet in height, or flat and resembling a tombstone. Hermann Goetz argues that Rajput funerary steles were originally enshrined in structures built from ephemeral materials such as wood and thatch. The layout of these structures approximated that of a Hindu temple, with a maṇḍapa (antechamber) that housed the stele and a garbha gṛha (innermost sanctum of a Hindu temple, where the principle image to whom the temple is dedicated, is enshrined) that held an image of the commemorated Rajput’s kul devā (dynastic deity).32 In this way, particularly if the stele marked the site of the commemorated Rajput’s cremation, he would be conceptually in perpetual attendance before and prayer to his deity. As will be examined later, in the Mewar section, this is the same underlying ideology that informs the layout of the royal Sisodia chatrīs. Prior to constructing chatrīs, Rajputs also erected funerary steles that were either freestanding or mounted on a chābutrā (a low, whitewashed platform). In his Tahqiq ma li al-Hind (Investigation of India) of 1030, Abu Raihan Muhammad al-Biruni (known as Alberuni, d. after 1086), describes, in relation to north Indian Hindu mortuary practices, precisely such a chābutrā: Part of his [the cremated deceased’s] burned bones are brought to the Ganges and thrown into it, that the Ganges should flow over them … thereby forcing them from hell and bringing them into paradise … On the spot he has been burned they raise a monument similar to a milestone, plastered with gypsum.33 Convincing evidence for an Indo-Islamic origin of the chatrī tradition also comes from communities of chatrī builders. Zahar-ud-din Usta and his family have designed, cut, carved the stone for, and assembled chatrīs for three generations of Bikaner’s kings. Usta’s ancestors, who were painters and stone carvers, came from Herat to the Mughal court in the sixteenth century. After allying 31

32 33

Hero stones commemorate extraordinary members of society, particularly martial heroes and their satīs. Several scholarly investigations have been devoted to the subject, among others: S. Settar, Gunther Sontheimer, eds., Memorial Stones: A Study of Their Origin, Significance, and Variety (Heidelberg: Dharwad, 1982). Mitterwallner, “Testimonials.” William A. Noble and Ad Ram Sankhyan, “Signs of the Divine: Sati Memorials and Sati Worship in Rajasthan,” in The Idea of Rajasthan, 341–89. Mary Storm, Head and Heart: Valour and Selfsacrifice in the Art of India (New Delhi: Routledge, 2013). Hermann Goetz, The Art and Architecture of Bikaner State (Oxford: Bruno Casirer, 1950), 54. Alberuni’s India, trans. Edward C. Sachau (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1992), 170.

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19

with Mahārājā Rai Singh of Bikaner (r. 1571–1611), the Mughal emperor Akbar sent the Ustas to Bikaner to supervise the building of Lallgarh Fort. According to Usta, all of Bikaner’s royal chatrīs, beginning with that of Rai Singh, are the products of his family’s workshop. Members of the current royal family’s administration and other high-ranking Rajputs in Bikaner support Usta’s claim. If it is true, it is significant that the chatrī tradition was introduced to Bikaner via the Mughal court.34 Additionally, the fact that throughout the former princely states hereditary chatrī builders are typically Muslim lends further credence to an Indo-Islamic genesis of the tradition.

The Commemorated: Public Ancestors and the Deified Deceased

Not all Rajputs are memorialized with a chatrī. It is a privilege restricted to those with money and status, such as members of the royal family and upperechelon aristocrats, and those who have behaved as paradigms of their Rajput jātī.35 That money should be a prohibitive factor in the construction of a memorial is understandable. But what exactly must a lower-ranking Rajput do to be memorialized with a chatrī? The posthumously deified Rajput is typically a vīr (martial hero) and worshipped as a devtā (god); if a woman, she is a satī.36 Both paradigms, vīr and satī, perfectly embody Rajput communal dharm, which although gender specific, always has at its heart the concept of self-sacrifice.37 It is the male Rajput’s dharm to fight in defense of religion and land. The bloodier the warrior’s death, the greater his own, his ancestors’, and his community’s prestige. However, by the eighteenth century Rajput kings had largely transitioned into ceremonial figureheads who, rather than engaging in combat, commanded their armies from safe distances. Few of these later Rajput 34 35 36 37

For more on Usta art and genealogy, see Shanane Davis, The Bikaner School Usta Artisans and Their Heritage (Bikaner: RMG Exports, 2008). Although the semantic content of the community’s name (literally “sons of kings”) suggests that each Rajput is noble and wealthy, this is not the case. A devtā is a minor deity whose cult is typically limited to a specific geographical region. A devā is one of the pan-Hindu Brahmanical deities, such as Shiva or Vishnu. Deified folk heroes and satīs are almost exclusively Rajput because, not only are fighting and self-sacrifice their communal prerogatives, but Rajputs are credited (by themselves and others) with possessing extraordinary physical and mental qualities, including physical strength, valor, and sat (Sanskrit: virtue or righteousness). However, Rajput heroes’ and satīs’ worshippers are not caste specific, and represent a wide cross section of Rajasthani society, including, at times, Muslims.

20

Introduction

kings died in battle and earned the opportunity to become martyrs and martial deities. Most posthumously deified Rajput warriors are therefore not royal but aristocrats, typically ṭhākurs or jagīrdārs. The majority of post-eighteenth-century Rajput kings died, not honorably on the battlefield, but safe in their beds, having reached old age, which has historically been considered humiliating to male members of this martial community. Consequently, the majority of the royal chatrīs simply memorialize members of the royal family, not the deified deceased. This point should not be underestimated. As will be examined in chapter 1, in the mid-eighteenth century, after a protracted skirmish for the throne of Jaipur, Mahārājā Madho Singh promoted Mahārājā Ishwari Singh, his recently deceased brother, who was also his chief rival to the throne, as a devtā. The form, decoration, and location of Ishwari Singh’s chatrī, as well as the program of worship his brother established at the memorial, presented the late king as a god. The significance of Madho Singh’s action would not have been lost on a contemporaneous Rajput audience: posthumous deification demoted Ishwari Singh (as will be further explained in chapter 1), thereby discrediting him and legitimizing Madho Singh’s position of power. The martial hero who goes willingly to certain death on the battlefield embodies the masculine Rajput paradigm. There are several categories of deified Rajput heroes, and these reflect the specific manner in which the hero died and his posthumous responsibilities. Even if they are not martyrs or heroic warriors, venerable Rajputs fall under the general category of lōk devtās (folk gods), or simply devtās. This includes several types, among them, for example, the jhunjhar, a martial hero who was decapitated in battle and whose headless corpse continued to fight. Another, the bhomiya (protector of the land, generally the home village or area where he died), may include accident victims or even suicides. Ishwari Singh of Jaipur fell into this category. Another type, the sagasjī, or martyred hero who was murdered (typically poisoned) amidst political intrigue, appears to be limited to the region of Mewar. These subcategories of deified heroes are familiar to Rajasthanis of every social class, both urban and rural, although unfamiliar to most non-Rajasthani Indians. Key aspects of Rajput women’s dharm include safeguarding their marital and natal families’ honor through chastity and devotion to their husbands’ spiritual, mental, and physical well-being. In the premodern era, satīs and women who performed the slightly different self-sacrifice of jauhar (mass selfimmolation) fulfilled this dharm both by ensuring that they would not be taken by enemy troops when their husbands were defeated in battle and by guaranteeing their eternal union with their husbands in heaven.38 38

For example, the Parasarasmṛiti states that a satī’s self-sacrifice absolves her and her husband of their sins and ensures their union in heaven for thirty-five million years.

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

21

Heroes and their satīs are often posthumously deified and worshipped at the site of the warrior’s memorial, which then becomes the physical locus of their devotional cults. Chatrīs are therefore an especially potent means of commemorating and celebrating historical Rajput folk deities, who serve a variety of social functions among the living. They bestow prestige on their ancestors and wider jāti, and positively intercede in the lives of their devotees. While nonroyal Rajputs may be posthumously deified through martyrdom or other unusual deaths, quasi-divinity was widely believed to be inherent in Rajput kings by virtue of their birth into the exclusive Kshatriya caste. Hindu kings are infused with additional sanctity during two key installation rituals: the rājābiṣek, an affusion ceremony in which they are libated with sacred liquids, and the rāj tīlak, in which their heads are anointed with kūmkūm (vermilion paste) and they ascend the throne. The degree to which Hindu kings are considered sacred—either the embodiment of a particular deity or a deity’s dīvān (prime minister or representative on earth)—and for how long (e.g., for the duration of their reign or only during the installation rituals and other annual ceremonies, such as Dussehra) is regionally specific.39 In the case of the Rajputs, myths of the dynasties’ divine origins support the notion of their semidivine status and further legitimize their political position. Each Rajput house traces its lineage through a divine ancestor to the sun, the moon, or the cosmic fire pit on Mount Abu in southern Rajasthan. Thus each Rajput house is considered to be Suryavanshi (descended from the sun, Chandravanshi (descended from the moon), or Agnivanshi (descended from the fire pit). The Rajput king, as their representative leader, is supreme among these already extraordinary humans. Another distinction between the sacred status of Rajput kings and martial heroes is that the former are considered to reside in heaven after death. The exact heaven is dependent upon the particular royal house’s kul devā. Rajputs, like other royal Hindu dynasties, are either Shaivas (followers of Shiva) or Vaishnavas (followers of Vishnu). Shaivite kings are posthumously referred to as Kailashvasi (resident of Shiva’s heaven) or Vaikunthvasi (resident of Vishnu’s heaven). As will be examined in relation to the royal chatrīs in Bikaner and Mewar, Rajput kings’ posthumous designations as residents in one or the other heaven may be referenced in epigraphic and frieze programs. Rajput heroes

39

Shakuntala Narasimhan, Sati: Widow Burning in India (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 18. Similarly, the Angirasasmṛiti promises that a satī will be united with her husband in heaven for “as long as there are hairs on a human body, scores of years.” Andrea Major, ed., Sati: A Historical Anthology (New York: Oxford University, 2007), 3. Adrian C. Mayer, “Rulership and Divinity: The Case of the Modern Hindu Prince and Beyond,” Modern Asian Studies 24, no. 4 (Oct. 1991): 765–90.

22

Introduction

whose deaths transform them into martial folk deities are believed by their devotees to remain somehow present and accessible at the sites of their memorials and able to grant boons and remove obstacles. They are somewhat paradoxically described as inhabiting vīrgitī (heaven for heroes) and being accessible to the living. Although for the practical reasons outlined above, since about the eighteenth century Rajput kings have not had the opportunity to die a martyr’s death and accordingly are seldom posthumously deified, royal Rajputs are conceived of as being something beyond simply dead and inaccessible. As will be considered in relation to the Bikaner chatrīs, signs of commemoration and interaction with the deceased at the sites of their memorials attest to this. But what exactly is the posthumous designation of a deceased royal Rajput? Rajasthanis, both Rajputs and members of other castes, to whom I posed this question responded that a former king is considered a pitr or pitru (ancestor), and a queen a pitranī (female ancestor). These are terms that refer to any ancestor in a general sense but also to benign spirits who remain at the sites of their death, ancestral homes, or memorials. They are accessible to their living ancestors, for whom they grant boons and offer protection. Whether understood simply as ancestors who are no longer present or as spirits who are more active in the lives of their descendants, pitrs, as Vedic writings such as the funerary hymn of the Rig Veda (10.15.1) outline, are considered to possess a specific and limited after-life span of five to seven generations before they evolve to inhabit ever more remote after-death realms. With each successive generation, pitrs become gradually more ephemeral and inaccessible to their living ancestors, until finally they are either reincarnated or attain mokṣ (liberation, annihilation of the soul). Over the course of these five to seven generations, pitrs are conceived of as being “on call,” residing in one of several intermediary heavens when they are not summoned or commemorated on annual holidays for the remembrance of ancestors.40 On those occasions, the deceased is honored with offerings of food and treated as a revered senior relative, according to the family’s means. As the ruling Rajputs were certainly of means, their ancestors are honored on these occasions with lavish festivals, banquets, and religious ceremonies in their chatrīs. By their very nature of being ancestors, pitrs are relevant only to their particular family. However, the living Rajput king is regarded as the symbolic head of his “family” of subjects. He is “father” to his people. His dharmik (dharm-

40

Lindsey Harlan, The Goddesses’ Henchmen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003): 148–56. Knipe, “Sapiṇḍīkaraṇa,” 117–22.

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

23

fulfilling) responsibility is to protect and provide for them.41 Gaj Singh, the current mahārājā of Jodhpur, is respectfully addressed by Jodhpuris as bapjī (honorable father), when they speak of or to him. Thus, as the living king is symbolically regarded as his subjects’ father, a deceased king may be considered a pitr to all the living citizens of his former kingdom and commemorated as such for five to seven generations at the public site of his chatrī. In addition to the Rajput king’s paternal role of providing for the welfare of his subjects, one of his most important religio-political roles is serving as the dīvān of his kul devā. The king is, even today, regarded as the god’s terrestrial representative.42 In the Bika Rathore and Sisodia Rajput memorial traditions, this religio-political office is explicitly referenced through the decorative programs of the kings’ chatrīs.

Rituals: The Chatrī as Politically Charged Performative Space

Traditionally, a Rajput king’s responsibilities to his deceased father have differed from those of most firstborn Hindu sons. In the Hindu tradition, the oldest son’s last and greatest dharmik responsibility to his father is to perform his dāh saṃskāra, which entails lighting the funeral pyre. Rajput kings were historically exempt from this duty, and until the late-nineteenth century, they did not even accompany the śav yātrā to the cremation ground. The new king observed the prescribed twelve days of mourning in seclusion, in the palace, while a close male relative took his place in the public mourning and death rituals.43 The Rajput king’s conspicuous absence from his father’s funerary ceremonies in the premodern period was informed by practical, political, and symbolic concerns. For much of Rajput history, the death of a ruler was followed by power struggles. It was therefore impractical for a new king to leave his throne empty and vulnerable to usurpers while he attended to his predecessor’s last rites. Additionally, according to Hindu tradition, it is believed that the soul remains with the body until the skull is smashed, in the rite of kapāl kriyā, during 41

42 43

Charles Allen and Shrada Dwivedi, “Mother and Father of the People,” in Lives of the Indian Princes (New Delhi: BPI India, 2002). A common epithet for “king” throughout Northern India is annandātā (“provider of grain”; i.e., food), which similarly conveys the concept of the ruler’s role as paternal protector and provider for his people. Barbara N. Ramusack, The Indian Princes and Their States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 39. Marzia Balzani, Modern Indian Kingship: Tradition, Legitimacy and Power in Rajasthan (Oxford: James Currey, 2003), 29–39.

24

Introduction

the cremation ritual.44 Thus, the previous king would be considered “alive” and present during his śav yātrā. By the time the funerary rituals were performed, the new king would have been instated, and it would be improper for two kings to occupy the same physical space, especially in the public setting of the śav yātrā. Finally, there is the Hindu concept that death is ritually polluting, and to fulfill the duties of his office the king should be kept free from such contaminants. This changed in most Rajput and other royal Hindu states by the-late nineteenth century, and the funerary cortege became an occasion to reiterate the new king’s descent from his father, as illustrated in the case of Jivaji Rao Scindia’s participation in his father’s elaborate śav yatrā. As the case of Madho Rao Scindia’s śav yatrā also illustrates, the procession offered the public the opportunity of a final darśan, a chance to view the king, whose corpse would normally be seated upright in a janpan (sedan chair) or palanquin and dressed in ceremonial regalia, including a token swath of cloth from the temple of the ruling family’s kul devā. The corpse would also be adorned with jewelry of precious stones and gold.45 For her dāh saṃskāra, a royal Rajput woman (irrespective of whether she was a widow at the time of her death) was dressed as a bride, whose adornments included the sōlah śringār (“sixteen signs” of a married Hindu woman). She was conceived of as a sughēn (auspiciously married woman), who would be joining her husband if he had died before her or would wait for his arrival if he had not.46 The funerary attire of Rajput women, particularly their conspicuous display of marital adornments, informs satī iconography in the Bika Rathore and Sisodia chatrīs. Construction of a chatrī may commence any time after the twelve days of mourning and begins with the rāj purōhit (royal priest) performing the bhūmī

44 45

46

Parry, “The Last Sacrifice,” 181. PWD File 410 (1814), “Regarding the Sickness and Sad Demise of His Highness Mahārājdirāj Maharawl Sri Shalivahanji Bhadur of Jaisalmer,” Jaisalmer State Government, Archives. This document describes how the king’s corpse was dressed by palace attendants, naming each article of clothing and piece of jewelry, which was chosen “in accordance with the old customs prevailing in the state … after consulting the wishes of the sardārs [nobles] and referring to the bahīs.” The file also records in detail the customary feasts and gifts to the funerary priests and royal temples. In an interview, Mehtab Singh Mahiyaria of Udaipur described a similar spectacle of opulence in the śav yatrā of Mahārāṇā Fateh Singh of Mewar, which he witnessed in 1957 (January 20, 2007). Interview with Tikka Ram Sharma, who holds the hereditary position of performing the daily program of worship at ten generations of Mewar mahārāṇās’ chatrīs (January 25, 2007).

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

25

pūjan (foundation ritual).47 Although the chatrī is ideally completed by the death’s first anniversary, in practice construction may take several years, particularly if the king is preoccupied with affairs of state or the royal architects are engaged in other commissions. Moreover, while a chatrī may be completed structurally, the pūjā, or prān pratiṣṭā (inauguration ceremony) can only be performed on an auspicious date and time determined by the rāj purōhit. As there are few such occasions each year, the delay is often furthered. There have thus been several instances where a Rajput king has occupied the throne for many years before the pūjā pratiṣṭā was held, and until it is performed, the chatrī is not a functional memorial, just as a temple is not considered to be fit for worship until similar rituals are held. A new king’s ascension rituals are performed before an assembly of nobles, who bear witness to the king’s installation. However, these rituals must be performed as soon after the previous king’s death as possible to ensure that the throne is unoccupied for the least amount of time. Consequently, before the advent of rapid transport, not all the aristocrats could attend a new king’s inauguration. The various ceremonies associated with the chatrī, including its inauguration and commemoration rituals, in which the new king plays a central role, therefore offered him an opportunity to publicly reaffirm his lineage and political authority. Rajput kings still commission their father’s chatrīs and inaugurate them with the pūjā pratiṣṭā today. These formal events provide the king with another opportunity, perhaps several years into his reign, to remind his nobles of his descent from the previous ruler, at the exact location where his predecessor was cremated, within the chatrī that he himself commissioned. The entire ceremony is therefore a politically charged performative spectacle that conceptually links the present king to the previous one and to all their ancestors. Rajput history is filled with kings who were forced to adopt successors. With so much at stake, adoptions were often contested, particularly by nobles whose own sons had been overlooked. Many a new Rajput king therefore came to his throne with a pressing need to justify his right to occupy it. As illustrated by the memorialization of Mahārājā Sawai Madho Singh II of Jaipur (examined in chapter 1), the act of commissioning an adopted father’s chatrī and then hosting the pūjā pratiṣṭā afforded the king an occasion to announce his legitimacy and silence voices of dissent. As the central actor in the pūjā pratiṣṭā ceremony, 47

During the bhūmī pūjān, a number of items are interred in the ground where the chatrī will be erected: a piece of gold, a coconut, water from the Ganges, and a burning lamp with fuel of pure ghee. The basmī (ash of the cremated remains) is placed in a small terracotta pot and interred in the center of the chatrī.

26

Introduction

the king is led through a series of rituals and recitation of prayers by the rāj purōhit and lays the kailaś, a finial in the form of a water pot that crowns the chatrī’s dome, in place with his own hands. The assembled nobles make up the audience. In attending the ritual, the nobles are inherently part of it; their presence makes them participants in the king’s performance of his legitimacy. The invitation to, and program for, the 1928 pūjā pratiṣṭā of Madho Singh II’s chatrī at Gaitor, the Jaipur royal necropolis, provides an example of a royal chatrī inauguration and the protocol participants were expected to observe. This example of a twentieth century royal Rajput chatrī inauguration appears to be standard, and similar protocols remain in use for Rajput chatrī inaugurations today. Each of the recipients would have been a tazīmī sardār (the highest-ranking noblemen in Jaipur), and his attendance would signal his (at least outward) support of the new king’s rule. The dress code was strictly white (the traditional Hindu color of death and mourning), and seating was assigned. Significantly, the seating arrangement at the pūjā pratiṣṭā mirrored that of a darbār, with the highest-ranking nobles seated near the king, inside the chatrī, while those of lower rank were seated outside, on the ground. The invitations also note that Madho Singh’s adopted son, Mahārājā Sawai Man Singh II, would personally perform the major stages of the ceremony.48 It was vital that the Jaipur darbār ensure that Man Singh’s presence—and by extension the line of succession—be conspicuous at the event. As will be examined more closely in chapter 1, several Jaipur nobles had publicly contested Man Singh’s adoption. In addition to the pūjā pratiṣṭā, the dagtithi (death anniversary) and śrāddh (a sixteen-day period in the Hindu month of Tula designated for the remembrance of ancestors) are occasions when the king typically visits the chatrī bagh in the company of the rāj kūmār (heir apparent), members of the nobility, and rāj purōhit to honor his ancestors. As the former rulers’ chatrīs are located sequentially in the ancestral necropolis, the living king’s performance of these commemorative rituals again reinforces the notion of dynastic continuity and legitimacy, through him and finally to his son, the future king. At the early-eighteenth century chatrī of Mahārāṇā Amar Singh of Mewar, graffiti left by two successive kings records that they duly performed these ancestral rituals, indicating that they were considered an integral part of a king and ancestor’s duties. One inscription notes that Mahārāṇā Jagat Singh (the graffiti specifically states that he is Amar Singh’s grandson) came to offer pranām (respects) to his late grandfather on the twelfth day of the Hindu month of Agahan VS 1690 (1633 CE) and that Pūjārī Bhatt Ganga Ram per48

PWD Report (1928), Rajasthan State Archives, Jaipur.

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

27

formed the ceremony. Another records that Mahārāṇā Fateh Singh (1849–1930) and several nobles, each mentioned by name, visited the site to pay homage to Amar Singh.49 Significantly, these inscriptions are written in Old Mewari, the local language of everyday speech and royal accounts. This choice of language indicates both kings’ desires to make known to the widest possible audience that they had honored their ancestor at the site of his chatrī, thereby fulfilling a duty that is a royal prerogative and, by extension, affirming their legitimacy on the throne of Mewar. Fateh Singh includes his companions’ names to enlist them as de facto witnesses who would be able to support the assertion that he performed these legitimacy-affirming rituals. Fateh Singh similarly recorded his performance of the rites in his haqiqat bahiya (official diary), thereby advertising the fact in different arenas.50 On the occasions of the dagtithi and śrāddh, the rāj purōhit leads the king through a ceremony that involves affusing the centrally located devalī in pāñcāmṛta (sweetened milk used for lustrating sacred images in Hindu ­temples). The images of the king and his satīs on the devalī are then anointed with vermillion, saffron, and turmeric paste, and silver foil is applied to their ­costumes. Both witnesses and royal records, such as the haqiqat bahiya of Mahārāṇā Fateh Singh,51 mention musical performances with female dancers held at the chatrī on these occasions.52 Court records and oral histories recounted to me by ancestors of palace servants, priests, and members of royal families indicate that the chatrīs enjoyed a semi-public audience. By virtue of their size, accessibility, and more durable materials, they would have been more widely viewed than court paintings and private apartments in the Rajput fort-palaces. Their location outside of earlymodern Rajput urban centers and smaller size would have made them less frequented than the state temples. Throughout this study, I read individual chatrīs 49 50 51 52

I am grateful to Professor Shakti Kumar of Vidyapeeth University, Udaipur, for assistance in translating the graffiti on Amar Singh’s chatrī. Sharma, ed., Haquiqat Bhiyan H.H. Maharana Fateh Singhji of Udaipur, vol. 1 (Udaipur: Maharana Mewar Research Institute, 2000), 255, 285. Ibid., 225–26, City Palace Archives, Udaipur. Rudyard Kipling recounts the details of such an occasion in Udaipur. He also notes that it was the practice in Mewar (and probably in other Rajput states) for women to dance over the king’s cremated ashes at the site of his dāh saṃskāra, while musicians played among the chatrīs. A golden hookah, water vessel, and the late king’s sword were kept at the site for the soul, which is believed to reside there during the twelve days of mourning. Rudyard Kipling, Out of India: Things I Saw and Failed to See in Certain Days and Nights in at Jeypore and Elsewhere (New York: G.W. Dillingham, 1895), 69–71.

28

Introduction

against contemporaneous arts of other media, such as painting and sacred architecture, and consider how these visual arts worked in concert or, in some cases, in intentional opposition, to disseminate their messages. The intended audience for the chatīs’ messages was the Rajput kings’ feudatories and elite courtiers, such as the tazīmī sardārs invited to the inauguration of Madho Singh II’s chatrī in Jaipur, kings and courtiers of other Rajput states, and by the late-nineteenth century, members of the imperial government.53 Courtiers and even family members frequently rebelled, and thus needed reminding of the current king’s legitimacy. Other governments required reminding of the same, as networks of inter-Rajput, Mughal, and colonial alliances were vital for each state’s social, political, and militarily standing. There are no extant records of how well individual memorials served their patron’s legitimizing programs. However, the fact that chatrīs with politically meaningful formal and decorative programs were widely commissioned, particularly during times of crisis, is a testament to their efficacy. Moreover, that politically ambitious non-Rajput communities adopted both the chatrī tradition and the practice of creating intertextual forms and decoration, suggests that the chatrīs’ messages and their potential to reach their target audiences, was appreciated throughout north India. Chatrīs are also familial sites of memory to honor ancestors and seek their blessings, particularly on auspicious occasions or before undertaking an important task, such as a battle. In many Rajput families, a new bride is still taken to her marital family’s chatrī bagh to pay her respects to her husband’s ancestors. Certain saṃskāras, such mundaṇ (a boy’s first haircutting) are performed at chatrīs of deified heroes and satīs to solicit their protection throughout the child’s life.54 Such ceremonies would provide opportunities for the chatrīs to deliver their worldly messages as well. More recently, the royal chatrī baghs have been recognized by both the Rajput royal families and the Government of India as historically significant monuments and are currently being promoted as tourist attractions. In 2003, the Indian Ministry of Tourism funded the restoration of the Bikaner chatrīs, which was carried out under the joint direction INTACH (Indian National Trust 53

54

The royal chatrī baghs featured on Edward VIII, the Prince of Wales’ official tour of Rajputana in 1920–1 (“Devals and the Hall of Heroes- Mandore,” Mehkma Khas, Public Works Department, Government of Jodhpur, File 269, 1921). A file in the Bikaner State Archives (Dostur Komwar Record 9, Jaipur State) records the Kachhwaha royal family’s numerous visits during the mid-eighteenth century to their ancestral necropolises at Amber and Gaitor and the women’s chatrī bagh in the city, noting offerings of sweets and music to their ancestors.

Rajputs and Their Royal Umbrellas

29

for Art and Cultural Heritage) and the Maharaja Ganga Singh Trust (the cultural, philanthropic, and historical organization run out of Bikaner’s Lalgarh Palace in conjunction with the royal family). The primary reason the Trust listed for the upkeep and restoration of the chatrīs was to draw tourists.55 Similarly, the Mahāsatī, the royal necropolis in Udaipur, has recently undergone an extensive restoration program focused on cleaning the site and in­ stalling information plaques on the chatrīs, with the aim of making it more appealing to visitors. Thus, the chatrīs’ functions have evolved and their audiences expanded.

Sources and Structure of the Book

Information for this project came from a rich variety of sources. Understandings of the chatrīs as conveyors of prestige, political and cultural ties, and sites where the dead are honored and, in some cases, worshipped came from scores of interviews conducted throughout Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi. Interview subjects included Rajputs, Marathas, and Sikhs whose ancestors are memorialized through chatrīs, as well as priests, chatrī builders, and worshippers. Many individuals opened their private libraries, granting me access to invaluable primary sources, including correspondence between their ancestors and various darbārs, royal and colonial decrees, genealogies, out-of-print texts, and newspaper articles. Shortly after the state of Rajputana, as it was called under the British colonial government, was transformed into the modern Indian state of Rajasthan in 1947, and the Rajputs were divested of their official powers and titles, the former state governments were requested to hand over their official documents to the newly created Rajasthan State Archives in Bikaner. Another, smaller, branch was established in Jaipur, the new state capital. Several of the former states, particularly Mewar, were understandably reluctant to surrender their financial, civic, bureaucratic, and personal records to the new government, and did not. The result is that the majority of colonial documents, including the Public Works Department files and administrative memoranda are now collectively housed either in the Jaipur or Bikaner state archives. Documents directly concerning the royal houses generally remain in their home states and are now housed in royal archives such as the Maharaja Mansingh Pustak Prakash Research Centre at Jodhpur’s Mehrangarh Fort. The corpus of 55

Denek Bhaskar (newspaper), 6 April, 2004, 26 April, 2004, and INTACH files at Lalgarh Palace, Bikaner.

30

Introduction

primary sources comprises several north Indian languages, including Mewari, Marwari, and Dhundhari (the old Rajasthani languages of Mewar, Marwar, and Jaipur, respectively), as well as Hindi, Urdu, Persian, and English, which was the lingua franca between the princely courts and the British Raj. This book divides the subject by state and within each of the five former Rajput states proceeds chronologically. It is, however, by no means a definitive survey of the Rajput chatrīs. Rather, it focuses on the formal and decorative programs of specific memorials, as well as significant and often abrupt changes within these states’ chatrī traditions. Chapter 1 lays down the framework for understanding how chatrīs served their patrons’ legitimizing programs, through glorifying (or, in two cases, defaming) the memorialized. This chapter is dedicated to the chatrīs of the Kachhwaha Rajputs who ruled the princely states of Amber and Jaipur. This is a logical point of departure as the Kachhwahas were the first Rajput dynasty to ally with the Mughals. The royal Kachhwaha chatrīs in the first chatrī bagh, at Amber, are among the oldest surviving examples, and in them certain motifs central to the Rajput program of promoting public identities make their debut. Two structures in particular, the seventeenth-century chatrī of Rājā Man Singh and a temple built during his reign, became lieux de mémoire that were appropriated by later generations of Kachhwaha kings to associate their own rules with one of their most celebrated ancestors. This chapter also examines the chatrīs of Mahārājā Jai Singh II and Ishwari Singh. Ishwari Singh, the patron of the chatrī for Jai Singh, and his brother, Madho Singh, who commissioned Ishwari Singh’s chatrī, were rival claimants to the throne. Each exploited his chatrī commissions to bolster his own claims to power and discredit the other. Chapter 2 considers how the rulers of the breakaway Kachhwaha states of Alwar and Shekhawati invented the chatrī tradition to express their worthiness to rule as sovereign kings. This chapter also investigates certain Rajasthani chatrīs commissioned by non-royal communities, specifically those of the Dadu Panth religious order and the Baniya (merchant caste) of Shekhawati. For the Dadu Panthis, chatrīs commemorating former religious leaders were stages upon which the order’s new leaders advertised their line of spiritual descent. After amassing vast fortunes in the nineteenth century, the Baniyas adopted Rajput practices—such as construction of stately homes, philanthropic institutions, and chatrīs—to advertise their commercial success. The Dadu Panthis and Shekhawati Baniyas appropriated the legitimizing sign of the chatrī. However, as these two communities have markedly different dharms and public identities from the Rajputs, the decorative programs and ultimate messages of their chatrīs are different and express concerns specific to their communities.

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Chapters 3 and 4 analyze the Jodha Rathore chatrīs of Marwar (now Jodhpur). They focus on two distinct groups of cenotaphs dating from the mid-sixteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries that were constructed when the court was politically compromised. When the dynasty was compelled to ally with the Mughals, it appropriated the forms of local Hindu temples built several centuries before as a way of associating themselves with the temple’s patrons, the Pratihara Rajputs. Marwar had been part of the Pratiharas’ vast empire, which they defended against incursions from Muslim groups from the west. The Pratihara temples were thus sites of memory that evoked a “golden age” with which the Jodha Rathore kings sought to associate their rule. Relations between the Jodha Rathores and Mughals again soured in the late-seventeenth century, and the dynasty turned to another renaissant style, this time associated with the Sisodia kingdom of Mewar, to advertise their anti-Mughal alliance with the Sisodias. Chapter 5 focuses on an iconographic analysis of the funerary devalīs in the royal Bika Rathore chatrīs in Bikaner. The steles’ friezes and epigraphs present the commemorated kings and their satīs as gendered Rajput paradigms. This chapter also examines the chatrī of Prince Mota Singh and Princess Deep Kunwar as a living site of commemoration and worship, since it concomitantly serves as a satī temple. Chapter 6 considers how the Sisodias of Mewar invented their chatrī tradition as an expression of resistance when they were forced to ally with the Mughal and British empires. The shared forms and internal organization of the Sisodias’ chatrīs and the dynastic temple to their patron deity, Eklingji, present the Sisodia kings as the god’s eternal dīvāns. Beyond synthesizing the material presented in the preceding chapters, the conclusion briefly examines the chatrī commissions of two non-Rajput royal communities in the eighteenth century: the Marathas and the Sikhs. These communities were among the many that rose to fill the power vacuum in the wake of the crumbling Mughal Empire. Unlike the Rajputs, the Marathas and Sikhs were not of royal lineages. To bolster their new claims to power, both com­munities appropriated Rajput and Mughal visual vocabularies and per­ formances of north Indian kingship. By the eighteenth century, the Rajputs had established the chatrī as a salient component of both. While appropriating the basic concept of the chatrī (a permanent architectural crematory memorial), Maratha and Sikh patrons radically altered the formal and decorative programs of their own chatrīs, again in support of their respective communal requirements. The chatrīs examined in the following chapters offer a range of architectural forms, decorative media and thematic content, and functions. In some cases,

32

Introduction

they concomitantly serve as temples. Each chapter takes a different approach to the analysis of a group of memorials. In its entirety, this book presents the chatrīs as an overlooked yet integral component of the visual vocabulary of north Indian Hindu kingship. As with well-documented examples of Rajput sacred and fort architecture,56 paintings,57 ornaments, dress, and other accoutrements,58 the Rajput chatrīs are visual arenas in which their patrons announced select aspects of their public identities. Again, like these other examples of Rajput visual culture, their styles, forms, and messages were not static but fluid and often intentionally polyseimc. The Rajput chatrīs offer a framework to help us understand the complex, entangled histories that informed the vast, constantly shifting landscape of power in north India, particularly during the early modern period. Chatrīs are sites that trace histories of contact, crisis, and competition between their patrons and forces within and outside of their kingdoms. They also inform us how entangled histories between various courts shape art, historical memory, and communal pride. 56 57

58

For example, Asher’s works cited at n. 18 above. Among others: Vishakha N. Desai, “Painting and Politics in Seventeenth-Century North India: Mewar, Bikaner, and the Mughal Court,” Art Journal 49, no. 4 (Winter, 1990): 370–78. Catherine Glynn, “A Rājasthānī Princely Album: Rājput Patronage of Mughal-Style Painting,” Artibus Asiae 60, no. 2 (2000): 222–64. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones, ed., Portraits in Princely India 1700–1947 (Mumbai: Marg, 2010). Anna Jackson and Amin Jaffer, eds., Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2009). Amin Jaffer, Made for Maharajas: A Design Diary of Princely India (New York: Vendome, 2006).

Interrupted Continuities

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Chapter 1

Interrupted Continuities: The Chatrīs of the Kachhwaha Rajputs of Amber and Jaipur Of all the Rajput royal houses, the Kachhwahas of Amber and Jaipur were arguably the wealthiest and most prolific patrons of art and architecture. The dynasty consistently demonstrated political savvy and was among the first to ally with incumbent powers and rising political stars. In the mid-sixteenth century, it was the first Rajput house to ally with the Mughals. Individual Kachhwaha kings enjoyed close relations with the Mughal emperors, to whom they were related through marriage, and held positions of high rank in the imperial army and court. In the early-nineteenth century, the Kachhwahas allied with the British and were their loyal supporters on the international stage. The dynasty’s profuse artistic patronage was funded by wealth gained from these politically exigent alliances, and each phase of Kachhwaha relations with the imperial powers influenced the dynasty’s chatrīs. As in other cases of Rajput appropriation of imperial forms, materials, styles, and messages of political legitimacy, Kachhwaha royal patrons and their artists selectively adopted and adapted from the Mughal and, to a lesser extent, European artistic repertoires. Perhaps no Rajput dynasty was more adept at appropriating from Mughal art for its political gain than the Kachhwahas. While scholars have examined the Kachhwahas’ politically motivated debt to the Mughals in their painting1 and sacred and secular architecture,2 Kachhwaha chatrīs have not been included in this dialogue. As with their art in other media, many Kachhwaha chatrīs convey their patrons’ dual identities as dharmik Hindu kings and dutiful subjects to their imperial overlords. The Kachhwaha king is the head of the clan, which also includes the Narukas of Alwar and the Shekhawats of Shekhawati. The oldest extant Kachhwaha 1 Catherine Glynn, “Evidence of Royal Painting for the Amber Court,” Artibus Asiae 56, nos 1–2 (1996): 67–93. Glynn, “A Rājasthānī Princely Album,” 222–64. 2 In addition to “Architecture of Raja Man Singh” and “Kachhwaha Pride and Prestige,” see Catherine Asher’s “Sub-Imperial Palaces: Power and Authority in Mughal India,” Ars Orientalis 23 (1993): 281–302; and “Rethinking Communalism: Kachhwaha Rajadharma and Mughal Sovereignty,” in Rethinking a Millennium: Perspectives on Indian History from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Century: Essays for Harbans Mukhia, ed. Rajat Datta (New Delhi: Aakar, 2008), 22–46. Also, Asher and Cynthia Talbot, India before Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2006), 148–51.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004300569_003

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Chapter 1

capital is Amber, where they ruled from the sprawling Amber Fort, perched atop a rocky escarpment and begun under Rājā Man Singh I (r. 1592–1614). Several lavishly carved temples they commissioned still stand in the now-sleepy town below. Also in Amber is the Kachhwahas’ first chatrī bagh, dating to the early-sixteenth century. When in 1727 they relocated their capital to the nearby planned city of Jaipur, they built a second chatrī bagh nearby, at Gaitor. With so much wealth, power, and prestige at stake, the Kachhwaha court has been fractured over the centuries by internal conflicts: in particular, three contentious royal successions. Each of the Kachhwaha kings involved in these succession skirmishes—Ishwari Singh (r. 1743–50), Madho Singh I (r. 1750–68), Madho Singh II (r. 1880–1922), and Man Singh II (r. 1922–69)—adamantly announced his right to occupy the throne through the formal and decorative programs of the chatrī he commissioned for his predecessor. Each of these chatrīs is remarkable for its radical formal and decorative divergences from earlier Kachhwaha cenotaphs, and the Kachhwaha chatrīs at Jaipur offer, along with the chatrīs of the Jodha Rathores of Marwar, some of the most conspicuous formal and decorative variations within a single Rajput dynasty. As mentioned in the introduction, when a king in the former Rajput kingdoms came to office amidst controversy—power struggles between the surviving princes, a royal adoption, or the dynasty’s forced concession to an outside power—he as a general rule commissioned a chatrī for his father that was large and ambitious, with a politically meaningful formal and decorative program. Thus a very specific message would be visually announced through the chatrī’s form and decoration, and amplified through its scale. New Rajput kings whose rules were not threatened, by contrast, seldom made particularly innovative chatrī patrons. Writing in relation to how those in power manipulate visual and performative rhetoric as a means of legitimizing their authority, and how political crisis is abrogated through the exploitation of symbols, anthropologist and political historian David Kertzer comments: Dramatic discontinuities threaten the integrity of any political organization. In the face of such a threat, potent symbolic means must be used to legitimate both the changes and the power holders responsible for them. Where the changes are made by a new power leadership, this may be done by discrediting some of the old symbols of legitimacy … Even in such cases, however, great emphasis is given to symbolic continuity … Where a sharp change in policies takes place, with the same leadership at the helm, leaders avoid attacking the old symbolism associated with past policies; rather, they attempt to expropriate those same symbols for their

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new political purposes. To challenge those symbols is to question the basis of their own authority.3 This tendency among the newly empowered to maintain the continuity of established symbols manifests throughout the Rajput chatrī baghs. For the Kachhwahas, pronounced variations come in the form of motifs, construction materials, and architectural plans. The dynasty can claim an unusually high number of royal chatrī patrons whose authority was threatened when they came to office, and the abrupt changes in their chatrīs may be attributed to the tumultuous nature of Kachhwaha politics, both internally and with external powers such as other Rajput houses, the Mughals, Marathas, and British. As a result, the history of Kachhwaha chatrī construction, particularly in Jaipur, may best be described as one of interrupted continuities. A general Kachhwaha chatrī type was established in the early-seventeenth century, abandoned at specific historic moments of crises, and restored only when political stability returned to the state. The first section of this chapter examines how eighteenth century Kachhwaha kings exploited their memorial commissions to visually map their lineage, linking them not only to the individual memorialized in the chatrī but further back in time to Rājā Man Singh, one of their most illustrious ancestors. These Kachhwaha chatrī patrons made this celebrated lineage visual through the appropriation of architectural forms and decorative motifs from two dynastic lieux de mémoire associated with Man Singh: his own chatrī and a temple built during his reign. Kertzer also asserts that if a ruler’s assumption of office is symbolically and ritually charged, then so too will be his deposition. A deposed ruler must be separated from his office, not only physically, but also metaphorically through ritual and symbols. Frequently, such political rituals and symbols communicate that the former ruler was apocryphal—he wronged his community and came to his position of authority by illegitimate means.4 The case of mid3 David Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 44–45. The Rajputs’ response to political crisis through especially lavish memorials for their predecessors may be compared to the scenario Kertzer describes as the British response to a series of crises that threatened the monarchy in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In the face of their final loss of political power, rising class conflict, and the need to provide an image of unity to their colonies, the British government staged royal ceremonials that were more elaborate and ritualistic than ever before in the nation’s history (ibid., 176). Kertzer’s example illustrates that at different times and in various places those in power have dealt publicly with threats to their authority through the employment of excess, which belies the reality of the situation. 4 Ibid., 28.

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seventeenth century Kachhwaha sibling rivalry between the half brothers Ishwari Singh and Madho Singh I, which resulted in the latter posthumously defaming the former’s memory through the form, construction material, and program of worship at the chatrī he commissioned for him, indeed seems to fit Kertzer’s model. After examining that case, we will turn to a narrative frieze on the base of the chatrī of Madho Singh II which depicts a political triumph in Madho Singh’s political career. The chapter concludes with a gendered reading of the Kachhwaha queens’ chatrīs that suggests the lack of individuality displayed in their apolitical decorative programs mirrors Rajput art in other media.

Building a Kachhawaha Paradigm: Rājā Man Singh

According to local lore, a complex of three chatrīs fused together into a single block at Khoh Nagoria, east of Jaipur city, commemorates the first three Kachhwaha kings to rule in Rajasthan: Duleh Rai (early-twelfth century), Kakil Dev (r. 1133–35), and Hanwant Dev (r. 1137–51). However, as is so often the case with early Rajput chatrīs, none of them bears an inscription. Thus, not only are the names of the architects and artists lost to time, but also those of the persons commemorated, making this assertion impossible to confirm. If these chatrīs do commemorate these early Kachhwaha rulers, their style (sultanate trabeated domes supported by square-planned pillars) indicates that they were probably commissioned in the late-fifteenth or early-sixteenth century by a later Kachhwaha ruler who sought to honor his ancestors through a memorial practice that only became standard long after their cremations. Not until the late-sixteenth century may we confidently assign names of the patrons and persons memorialized through the Kachhwaha chatrīs. The chatrī of Rājā Man Singh is the oldest identifiable Kachhwaha memorial. In 1562, under Rājā Bharmal (r. 1548–74), the Kachhwahas became the first Rajput dynasty to ally with the Mughals, an alliance Bharmal cemented by offering his daughter in marriage to the emperor Akbar.5 Rajput matrimonial alliances, within the community and with the Mughals, were potent conveyers of social status; historically, Rajputs have attempted to marry their daughters to grooms of equal or, preferably, higher social rank. In so doing, the bride’s father publically acknowledges the superior status of the groom’s family.6 Thus 5 Rima Hooja, A History of Rajasthan (New Delhi: Rupa and Company, 2006), 445. 6 For a longer examination of the political, social, and cultural implications of marriages between the Indian princely states, see Frances H. Taft, “Honor and Alliance: Reconsidering Mughal-Rajput Marriages,” in The Idea of Rajasthan, 217–42.

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when Bharmal offered his daughter to Akbar, he affirmed that the recently established Mughal Empire was the master of north India. Over the next few decades, several other Rajput houses would perform similar acceptances of Mughal superiority by marrying their women to Mughal emperors and princes. Rajput houses that intermarried with the Mughals lost the privilege of marrying women from the Sisodia family of Mewar, one of the oldest and most esteemed Rajput dynasties.7 The Sisodias were the last Rajput dynasty to ally with the Mughals; they did so reluctantly and never married into the imperial family. Thus Bharmal—like several other Rajput rulers during the late sixteenth century, such as Rājā Udai Singh of Marwar and Rao Kalyan Singh of Bikaner—alienated the Sisodias by allying with the Mughals. Kachhwaha-Sisodia relations were further poisoned in 1576 when, in Akbar’s military service, Bharmal’s grandson Man Singh led a devastating attack on Mewar in which he engaged in personal combat with Rāṇā Pratap, the Sisodia king. The Kachhwaha mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II’s matrimonial alliance with the Sisodias in the mid-eighteenth century would exemplify how tremendous the ramifications of marital alliances could be, directly and indirectly impacting foreign and domestic policy, as well as chatrī design, for generations.8 The story of the Kachhwaha chatrīs in many ways begins with Rājā Man Singh, Rājā Bharmal’s grandson, as his is the first cenotaph we can positively identify. Additionally, the architectural form of Man Singh’s chatrī, as well as many of its decorative themes, became, for politically motivated reasons, standard in the dynasty’s later memorial commissions in Jaipur. Man Singh was a consummate diplomat who secured his dynasty’s favored position in the Mughal court and the financial and cultural boons and prestige that came with it. Not only was Man Singh related to Emperor Akbar by 7 Francis H. Taft (ibid.) argues that the Sisodias capitalized on the fact that they never intermarried with the Mughals, particularly in the eighteenth century, as the Mughal Empire was dissolving. This lent credence to their self-promotion as the most dharmik of all the Rajput dynasties, which other Rajputs continue to accept today. 8 For example, the Amarakavya vanshavali, a Sisodia dynastic panegyric, records the legendary yet apocryphal anecdote that when the Sisodia Rāṇā Pratap Singh feasted Rājā Man Singh when he was in Mewar, the Sisodia king refused to eat with him because Man Singh’s aunt had married into the Mughal house. After the meal, Pratap Singh had the dining area ritually cleansed, implying that the Kachhwahas’ alliance with the Muslim Mughals made them ritually impure. Cynthia Talbot, “The Mewar Court’s Construction of History,” in Kingdom of the Sun: Indian Court and Village Art from the Princely State of Mewar, ed. Johanna Williams (San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2007), 24. In 1660 Mahārāṇā Raj Singh had the event recorded in a public inscription at Rajsamand Lake in Mewar, ensuring that it found a wide audience. Jennifer Beth Joffee, “Art, Architecture and Politics in Mewar, 1628–1710,” Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, 2005, 120–21.

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marriage, but the two rulers had a close friendship, and the older Akbar referred to the Amber ruler as farzand (son). Man Singh distinguished himself both as one of the most accomplished figures in Kachhwaha history and among the most trusted members of Akbar’s court and army. Man Singh’s status as one of the most powerful military commanders in the empire is reflected in his eminent titles and political positions. Akbar conferred the esteemed title of sapt hazārī manṣabdār upon the Amber rājā (king), indicating that seven thousand imperial troops were under his direct command. This was the highest honor the Mughal emperor could grant to a Hindu and nonmember of the imperial family. Akbar, and later Jahangir (r. 1605–27), also entrusted Man Singh with governorships in Kabul, Bihar, Bengal, and Orissa.9 In addition to being an adept statesman and military commander, Man Singh is remembered as a prolific architectural patron. His personal association with two Mughal emperors and the time he spent at their courts, first as a prince and then as king, finds expression in his architectural commissions, which offer innovative formal and decorative amalgamations of regional north Indian and early Mughal styles. Catherine Asher has written extensively about how Man Singh’s position in the Mughal court, which familiarized him with the imperial aesthetic, together with his position as head of one of the most powerful Rajput houses, shaped his architectural commissions in Amber, Vrindavan, Bihar, and Bengal. Asher cogently argues that Man Singh exploited the epigraphic and decorative programs of his sacred and secular commissions to announce his success and to legitimize his status in two distinct capacities: As Mughal servant, he established imperial territorial presence and dutifully lauded the emperor. As a Hindu king, he commemorated his ancestors and glorified the royal line.10 Rājā Man Singh is upheld by his descendants as a paradigm of Kachhwaha kingship, an exemplar of rājādharma (the socio-religious duties of a Hindu king), and generations of his successors identified with his lineage when forging their own public identities. The first royal Kachhwaha necropolis, at Amber, contains several chatrīs dating from the mid-sixteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries. The majority are humble structures of rough gray stone austerely decorated with low-relief friezes. As with the three Khoh Nagoria chatrīs, few bear inscriptions, making the identification of the oldest chatrī in the necropolis impossible. The chatrī of Rājā Bhagwant Das (r. 1574–89) is doubtlessly among the earliest, for a number of reasons. Bhagwant Das was highly accomplished, had nurtured relations 9 10

Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 484–97. See, among others: Asher, “The Architecture of Raja Man Singh”; “Authority, Victory and Commemoration,” 25–36; and “Kachhwaha Pride and Prestige.”

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between the Kachhwahas and the Mughals, and his son, Man Singh, would probably have sought to publicize his line of descent by commissioning a chatrī for his father. The considerable time Man Singh spent in the imperial capitals would have acquainted him with the built environments of Delhi, Agra, and Lahore. Man Singh would also certainly have seen how generations of Delhi sultans, Akbar, and Jahangir all utilized the forms, decoration, and construction materials of the mausoleums they commissioned to convey aspects of their public identities. His close friend Akbar, after all, completed the monumental tomb for his own father, Humayun, in 1570. The tomb’s form with its lofty īwans (arched entrances) and full dome are traceable to pre-Islamic Persian sources and feature in the Gur-i Mir, the tomb of the great warlord Timur from whom the Mughals traced their lineage, in Samarqand. The building material (redbrick and white-marble) is local and was established as the preeminent building material in royal Islamic India with the Ala al-Din Khilji’s commission of the Alai Darwaza at the Quwwat mosque complex in Delhi in 1311. The decorations of Humuyun’s tomb (particularly the diminutive architectural chatrīs)11 announce its patron’s versance with local culture and symbols.12 The most significant chatrī in the Amber necropolis, from both historical and art historical perspectives, commemorates Rājā Man Singh (Fig. 1.1). The king died of natural causes in Balapur, Maharashtra, and a ruined, uninscribed chatrī there is believed to mark the site of his cremation. A commemorative plaque later added to the northern side of the exterior of the Amber chatrī’s drum does not offer a date or name the structure’s patron, but considering the Indo-Islamic and emerging Rajput practice of filial patronage for royal funerary memorials, it is fair to assume that it was commissioned by Man Singh’s son and successor, Rājā Bhao Singh (r. 1614–20). In light of the short span of Bhao Singh’s rule, Man Singh’s chatrī may confidently be dated to within its six years. Significantly, Bhao Singh was not Man Singh’s eldest son. That son, Jagat Singh, who would traditionally have inherited the throne according to the Rajput system of primogeniture, predeceased his father. According to Rajput inheritance practices, Jagat Singh’s eldest son, Maha Singh, should have then 11

12

Decorative chatrīs are another intertextual architectural feature. While they are most associated with Indo-Islamic architecture (and schools associated with it, such as Rajput and colonial), ultimately, this feature may be traced to earlier Indian visual cultures. Like the funerary chatrīs, architectural decorative ones refer to umbrellas and their associations of extraordinariness. Glen D. Lowry, “Humayun’s Tomb: Form, Function, and Meaning in Early Mughal Architecture,” Muqarnas 4 (1987): 133–48.

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figure 1.1 Chatrī of Rājā Man Singh Kachhwaha of Amber, commissioned by Rājā Bhao Singh, early-seventeenth century

inherited the Kachhwaha throne. However, history records that Maha Singh drank excessively and was irresponsible. Jahangir exercised his imperial prerogative and intervened in the Kachhwaha line of succession, bypassing Maha Singh and appointing Jagat’s younger brother Bhao in his place as the new king of Amber.13 Considering Bhao Singh’s somewhat circuitous path to the Kachhwaha throne, it is not surprising that he elected to commission a chatrī for his father, thereby unequivocally communicating the direct line of Kachhwaha descent and eliding the figures of Jagat Singh and Maha Singh, and their reigns that never were. Man Singh’s chatrī is the largest in the chatrī bagh, its height emphasized by a lofty base. The structure’s main components include a large corbeled dome, in the sultanate or early Mughal style, ringed by four smaller domes, each of 13

Tazkiratul-Umara of Kewal Ram: Biographical Account of the Mughal Nobility,1556–1707ad, trans. S.M. Azizuddin Husain (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1985), 250. Rawal Harnath Singh, Genealogical Table of the Kachhwahas (Jaipur: Jai Mayur, 1974), pages unnumbered. Mughal sources present Bhao Singh as Man Singh’s most competent son and rightful heir. In the Jahangirnāma, when recording that he increased his rank to a manṣabdār of fifteen hundred, the emperor refers to Bhao Singh as “the most worthy of Raja Man Singh’s sons.” The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 32.

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which crowns a square planned porch. This arrangement of five clustered domes is referred to as pāñchratanā and was first popularized in north Indian temples of the medieval period. Only a few other chatrīs in the necropolis share the scale and pāñchratanā dome cluster of Man Singh’s cenotaph, indicating that they similarly commemorate kings and that these were features that denoted royalty. The transition zones between the central dome and those surmounting each of the porches are marked by pronounced corners on the exterior and recessed triangular sections on the interior of the chatrī’s ceiling. Thus the overall plan of the chatrī is cruciform, with arms of equal length. A continuous chajjā (eave) rings the exterior. The pillars are also sultanate or early Mughal in style, with square bases that transition halfway through to polygonal in plan. With the structure’s pāñchratanā dome arrangement and distinctive plan, Man Singh’s chatrī stands in contrast, not only to the majority of the chatrīs in the Amber chatrī bagh, but also with other early chatrīs throughout Rajasthan, which are predominantly single domed and octagonal in plan. The interior of Man Singh’s chatrī is empty. Apart from the distinguished Kachhwaha ancestor it commemorates, Man Singh’s chatrī is significant for its mural program on the inside of the dome and around its drum, which offers some of the oldest extant Kachhwaha paintings. Despite the establishment of flourishing Mughal and Rajput painting ateliers at other courts during the early-seventeenth century and close KachhwahaMughal relations, there is perplexingly little evidence of a royal painting tradition in Jaipur before the early-eighteenth century.14 The mural cycles in the Bairat garden pavilion and the oldest section of the Amber Fort, both of which are believed to have been commissioned by Man Singh, are among the few known examples of paintings in the state that are contemporaneous with those in Man Singh’s chatrī.15 The three cycles bear thematic and stylistic similarities, indicating that they are likely products of the same workshop. The murals in Man Singh’s chatrī are now so badly damaged that few of the scenes are discernible. Those that are identifiable are both sacred and secular in content, and framed in a ring of forty recessed niches along the drum

14 15

Catherine Glynn, “Evidence of Royal Painting for the Amber Court,” Artibus Asiae 56 (1996): 67–93. Scholars are not unanimously agreed on the date or patron of the Bairat pavilion and its murals. However, the majority assigns patronage of the building and most of the murals to Rājā Man Singh. Hermann Goetz, “The Early Rajput Murals of Bairat (ca. ad 1587),” Ars Orientalis 1 (1954): 113–18. Rosa Maria Cimino, Wall Paintings of Rajasthan: Amber and Jaipur (New Delhi: Aryan Books, 2002), 4–20.

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figure 1.2 Recessed niches on the interior drum of Man Singh’s chatrī showing a painting of a bottle

(Fig. 1.2).16 Each niche offers a single figure, or at most two, with no more than a lone tree as background. As in the Bairat murals, the figures are executed in an amalgamation of indigenous Rajput and early Mughal styles, which is appropriate for the memorial of the pro-Mughal Rajput king. Figures are outlined in black and posed in strict profile, in the Rajput style. They wear a variety of contemporaneous costumes. Several of the males wear the chakdār jāmā (a four-pointed upper garment popular in Akbar’s court) tied to the left, indicating that the wearer is Hindu. Females wear either Rajput or Persian dress, the latter with the tall Chagatai caps worn by Mughal noblewomen in Akbari paintings. From the rāgamālā (literally “garland of musical modes”) painting tradition that was emerging in the Rajput courts around the time of the chatrī’s construction is the figure of Todi Ragini, a personified musical mode whose iconography includes a woman holding a vīnā (four-stringed instrument) and flanked by deer. While Shaivite and goddess images are included in the chatrī 16

The murals are painted directly onto the stone, rather than on a plaster matrix (both fresco secco and fresco buono techniques were practiced in Rajput mural traditions). The painting technique and a late-twentieth-century restoration program that further damaged them account for the murals’ poor state of preservation (ibid., 23).

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murals, the majority of sacred scenes are from Vaishnavite mythology. These include Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan with his finger, fluting, and surmounting the serpent Kaliya—all subjects that would later feature in recessed niches in the drums of Kachhwaha chatrīs in Jaipur. Secular references to Rajput kingship feature prominently in the chatrī’s murals. These include numerous elephants, which are symbols of Indic rulership and appear frequently in Buddhist, Hindu, and Indo-Islamic art. Another royal icon repeated in the chatrī is a mounted male figure goading an elephant. The figure is playing sātmarī, a game of skill and daring in which he provokes an elephant to charge after his horse while the elephant grows increasingly irritable and dangerous. The murals’ thematic program also addresses courtly leisure, with scenes of dancing women and flasks of wine. The motif of a wine vessel framed in an architectural niche has its roots in Persian art and architecture, and features as a decorative motif in Mughal architecture and in Rajput fort palaces, such as the Jai Mandir at Amber Fort constructed under Jai Singh I (r. 1622–1667) in the 1620s. In a Rajput context, however, the motif of a wine vessel likely carried a metonymic layer of meaning that transcended the decorative. Alcohol and kingship have historically been at odds in traditional Hindu culture. Brahmanical texts such as the Manusmriti (Law Code of Manu) offer insight into popular conceptions regarding alcohol consumption in premodern Hindu cultures. The Manusmriti, which dates to between 200 bce and 200 CE, focuses on the dharm of members of both sexes and each caste, and was the foremost treatise on Hindu law until the colonial period. Manu, the divine progenitor of mankind, associates alcohol with base behavior, labels it as spiritually polluting (11.151), identifies its drinking as a crime (9.325, 11.55), and counsels that “A priest, ruler, or commoner should not drink liquor … Wine, meat, liquor, and strong decoctions are the food of genies, ogres, and ghouls” (11.94–96). Consumption of alcohol has traditionally been a convoluted signifier of social status in Hinduism. Although largely the prerogative of the lower classes, for the Rajputs, members of the high-ranking Kshatriya caste, indulgence was not only permissible, but encouraged. The Rajputs were alone (at least in theory) among the upper castes in their consumption of alcohol and other select dietary habits. More than simply a sybaritic pastime, drinking alcohol has long been considered socially commendable in this community, as it assisted them in fulfilling their dharm.17 That drinking was considered an admirable quality 17

G. Morris Carstairs, “Daru and Bhang: Cultural Factors in the Choice of Intoxicant,” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 15 (1954): 220–37; and “The Case of Thakur Khuman

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for male Rajputs is supported by texts and inscriptions. For example, the “Jodhpur Inscription of Prathāhar Bāuka,” datable to 837 CE, praises the sons of King Haricandra as “drinkers of wine.”18 According to āyurveda, the traditional Indian medicinal system, alcohol is associated with the quality of rājas, meaning that it produces heat and incites the passions, making the drinker hot- tempered. This is considered a favorable quality among the martial Rajputs. Members of this community traditionally fortified themselves with large doses of opium-laced alcohol before charging into battle, believing it made them mentally and physically stronger and better equipped for combat. Rājas is also believed to incite sexual passion and stimulate the production of semen, enabling the conception of more progeny.19 Additionally, alcohol and opium consumption were, and remain, associated with festive occasions among the Rajputs; they are offered to guests as a token of welcome and hospitality at weddings, celebrations, and at the royal darbār. Offerings of alcohol and opium are also proffered at funerals and presented to Rajput ancestors and deified martial heroes at the sites of their chatrīs. The alcohol bottles in the niches in the interior of the drum on Man Singh’s and other Rajputs’ chatrīs should be understood as a metonym signifying the wine that the deceased enjoyed in life and, by extension, the legitimacy, entitlement, and the exclusivity of the Rajput community. The bottle signifies that the person memorialized possessed these communally desirable traits and that he and, by extension, his son and heir who commissioned the structure were worthy opponents on the battlefield and members of the elite ruling class. It is also a reference to the wine offered to the deceased at the site of his chatrī for seven generations (the length of time an ancestor’s soul is believed to be accessible). Several of the stylistic features of Man Singh’s chatrī are shared by the Jagat Shiromani temple, the most lavishly decorated building constructed during Man Singh’s reign (Fig. 1.3). Situated at the foot of Amber Fort, close to the Amber chatrī bagh, the Jagat Shiromani temple, with its towering śikhara (spire), is visible from a great distance. As one of the most important public temples in the royal capital, the Jagat Shiromani would have attracted a

18 19

Singh: A Culture Conditioned Crime,” The British Journal of Delinquency: The Official Organ of the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency 4 (1953): 16. R.C. Majumdar, “The Jodhpur Inscription of Pratihāra Bāuka, VS 984,” in The History of the Gurjara Pratihāras, ed. B.N. Puri (Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1957). Lindsey Harlan, Religion and Rajput Women: The Ethic of Protection in Contemporary Narratives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992),129. Harlan, The Goddesses’ Henchmen, 144. G. Morris Carstairs, The Twice-Born: A Study of a Community of High-Caste Hindus (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1967), 109–11.

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figure 1.3 Jagat Shiromani temple built during the reign of Rājā Man Singh Kachhwaha, Amber, view facing west

sizeable following even after the Kachhwahas relocated their capital. This Vishnu temple was commissioned by Rājā Man Singh’s principal queen, Shrangar Devi Kanvat, in memory of their deceased son, Jagat Singh, and completed in the early 1600s.20 While not directly commissioned by Man Singh, his approval would have been required for such a monumental construction. Moreover, considering the abundance of prominent politically charged references carried through the temple’s form, decoration, and construction material, it is probable that Man Singh participated in the temple’s design. Its designation as a memorial unites it with a number of Man Singh’s other temples, including the Govind Dev temple in Vrindavan, a Gauri Shankar temple in Baiktapur, and a Shiva temple in Manapura (near Gaya). All were built either at the site of the cremation of the person memorialized (making it conceptually like a chatrī) or in their honor.21 To my knowledge, these Kachhwaha memorial temples are atypical in Rajput architectural traditions and indicate Man Singh’s desire to

20 21

The history of the temple is detailed on a plaque at the site erected by the Archaeological Survey of India. Asher, “Kachhwaha Pride and Prestige.”

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publicize his lineage and the prestige of his ancestors through meaningful architectural styles. The Jagat Shiromani temple’s architectural form, sculptures, and murals offer an amalgam of contemporaneous Mughal style and the indigenous northwest Indian Maru-Gurjara sacred architectural style that flourished between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.22 Mughal influence manifests in its red and white stone, serpentine brackets, pyramidal vault over the maṇḍapa, blind foliated arches, and diminutive decorative architectural chatrīs, features shared with several of Akbar’s major commissions, including those at Fatehpur Sikri and the so-called Jahangiri Mahal at the Agra Red Fort. From the earlier northwest Indian temple tradition come the distinctive śekharī-style śikhara, the temple’s lofty base, and the profuse architectural carvings.23 The sculptures are located on bands of deep reliefs on the temple’s base and in niches on the śikhara and the interior of the maṇḍapa. As in Man Singh’s chatrī, while Shaivite and goddess sculptures do feature, the majority are Vaishnavite and depict Vishnu in his many forms, such as Krishna fluting, lifting Mount Govardhan, and surmounting Kaliya. Another prominent theme in the temple’s sculptural program is voluptuous women. These take the form of ornamented dancers, many of whom are depicted fastening their payal (belled 22

23

Ibid., 222. For a discussion of the Maru-Gurjara style, see M.A. Dhaky, “The Genesis and Development of Maru-Gurjara Temple Architecture,” in Studies in Indian Temple Architecture, ed. Pramod Chandra (New Delhi: American Institute of Indian Studies, 1975), 114–65. The varied forms, decoration, and construction materials of Rājā Man Singh’s commissions share intertextual relationships with numerous buildings, which were themselves built to reference earlier structures. Many early Mughal structures were rooted equally in Timurid and sultanate traditions, both of which in turn drew from earlier architectural traditions (for example, Seljuk in the case of the former, pre-Islamic north Indian for the latter). However, for Man Singh and later Kachhwaha kings that sought to reference his memory, early Mughal monuments, such as the Jahangiri Mahal were probably in and of themselves the key site of memory, the precise reference point that organized all the other sources of influence and subsumed them. As Lowry argues, their numerous and highly distinct sources of influence allowed Mughal buildings to operate as polyvalent signs announcing different facets of the dynasty’s identity to different audiences (Lowry, “Humayun’s Tomb”). The Maru-Gurjara style, too, is a hybrid of earlier sacred styles from regions now within the states of Rajasthan and Gujarat (Dhaky, “Genesis and Development”; Meister, “Art Regions in Modern Rajasthan,” 160). To Man Singh, the Maru-Gurjara style probably signified indigenous northwestern Hindu architectural traditions, the local, rather than Rajput autonomy. This is very different from what I propose in chapter 3, which is that the Jodha Rathores of Marwar appropriated the earlier Maha-Maru and Maru-Gurjara styles from specific lieux de memoire to reference a pre-Mughal autonomous Rajput past.

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figure 1.4 Pillar side facing exterior of Garuda maṇḍapa with relief of woman, Jagat Shiromani temple.

anklet), and appear exclusively on the roof brackets on the interior of the maṇḍapas. Also found are servers who proffer long-necked bottles similar to those that adorn Man Singh’s chatrī (Fig. 1.4), musicians, fly whisk bearers, figures surrounded by infants and suckling babies (Fig. 1.5), and Todi Ragini. As with many temples dedicated to Vishnu, the Jagat Shiromani’s main entrance is preceded by a freestanding Garuda maṇḍapa (Garuda shrine). This structure shares the pāñchratanā dome cluster with Man Singh’s chatrī. The Jagat Shiromani temple’s profuse display of figural art is an unusual archaism in seventeenth-century Amber. Extensive architectural sculpture is a distinct feature of the Maru-Gurjara idiom, which was revived in the Mewar region of southern Rajasthan in the fifteenth century under Rāṇā Kumbha. However, it had not been popular in the Amber region since the twelfth

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figure 1.5 Pillar facing interior of Garuda maṇḍapa with relief of woman nursing, Jagat Shiromani temple.

century.24 It is also noteworthy that the Jagat Shiromani’s sculptural program differs from that in Rājā Man Singh’s other sacred commissions, such as his larger and better known temple, the Govind Dev in Vrindavan. Mughal stylistic influence manifests in the Govind Dev temple through the almost exclusively aniconic sculptural program and the monumental pyramidal internal vault, similar to that in Akbari structures such as the Jahangiri Mahal. While the Jagat Shiromani and Govind Dev temples appropriate different features from the early Mughal architectural tradition, the messages they disseminate through 24

Asher, “Rethinking Communalism,” 227. Numerous smaller temples in the vicinity of the Jagat Shiromani offer elaborate architectural sculptures. However, they were built after the Jagat Shiromani (Asher, “Kachhwaha Pride and Prestige,” 222).

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those appropriations are similar: that Man Singh was an arbiter of imperial taste, had vast financial reserves and a skilled workforce, and was dedicated to promoting his overlord Akbar’s message of ṣulh-i kul (universal toleration, in regard to religious faith).25 In selectively appropriating features from contemporaneous Mughal structures, Rājā Man Singh was not alone among his Rajput contemporaries, with whom he would have become acquainted at the imperial darbārs and on military campaigns. His similarly pro-Mughal contemporary Rājā Bir Singh Deo Bundela (r. 1605–27) also commissioned temples, most notably the monumental Chaturbhuj in Orchha, whose forms and decoration have a pronounced intertextuality with contemporaneous Mughal structures and are deployed to similar political ends.26 Man Singh was also in good company with other Rajput kings in his appropriation of pre-Indo-Islamic archaized architectural features. As examined in chapter 3, Rājā Udai Singh of Marwar inaugurated a renaissant northwest Indian style of chatrī that the Jodha Rathores dynasty retained for several generations. To later generations of Kachhwaha kings, the Jagat Shiromani temple and Man Singh’s chatrī were potent sites of memory that embodied a specific moment in Kachhwaha history. These two structures signified the dynasty’s power, imperial favor, and performance of dharmik duties as embodied in the figure of Man Singh during the late-sixteenth century. Nearly two centuries after Man Singh’s rule, his ancestor Mahārājā Sawai Ishwari Singh culled formal and decorative elements from the temple and the chatrī for the chatrī he commissioned for his father, Sawai Jai Singh II (r. 1688–1743). Ishwari Singh appropriated forms and motifs from these two highly symbolic sites to refer to Man Singh, a “golden age” in Kachhwaha history, and his own position within that illustrious royal Rajput lineage.

Sibling Rivalry and Contested Authority: Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II’s Chatrī in Jaipur

Second only to Rājā Man Singh, the most celebrated Kachhwaha ancestor is Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II, who founded the new Kachhwaha capital of 25 26

For more on Akbar’s policy of acceptance of the various religions in his empire, see Asher and Talbot, India before Europe, 129. Edwin Leland Rothfarb, “Towers of Devotion: The Sacred Architecture of Bir Singh Dev,” in Orchha and Beyond: Design at the Court of Raja Bir Singh Dev Bundela (Mumbai: Marg, 2012).

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Jaipur in 1727.27 Amber’s proximity to the new capitol ensured that it exerted a pronounced influence on Jaipur’s built environment, including its chatrīs. Jai Singh founded Jaipur against a politically tumultuous backdrop. The Mughal Empire began its inexorable decline with the death of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, creating a power vacuum in north India that would only be decisively resolved with the establishment of the British Raj in 1857. During the eighteenth century, several politically ambitious communities, including the Rajputs, Marathas, and Sikhs, established their own kingdoms, seeking to profit from this instability. Each of these occurrences—the dissolution of the Mughal Empire, the resulting political instability, and finally colonialism—would leave its impress on the Kachhwaha chatrīs in Jaipur. Aurangzeb’s successors remained little more than figureheads, but their political benediction and gestures of favor, such as the gifting robes of honor and titles, continued to have tremendous currency on the north Indian political stage until 1857. Similarly, the arts of various media that many Rajput royal houses—as well as the Marathas, Sikhs, and even British—patronized during this period continued to have a strong Mughal flavor.28 In their architectural commissions, these non-Mughal patrons particularly favored the imperial style developed under Shah Jahan in the seventeenth century. Building in this style signified a patron’s cosmopolitan sensibilities, imperial refinement, and royal endeavor. Although many royal Rajput patrons favored the later Mughal style for their artistic commissions, kings from the three most powerful Rajput houses—the Sisodias of Mewar, the Jodha Rathores of Marwar, and the Kachhwahas of Jaipur—grew deeply disaffected with the empire. In 1679 they formed a tripartite alliance against the Mughals, the impact of which would resonate in those three states for generations and would indirectly impact each of their chatrī traditions. Amar Singh II, the Sisodia mahārāṇā (king) of Mewar, approached Jai Singh with promise of military protection, as well as an offer to marry his daughter, Chander Kanwar, to fortify the diplomatic union. This alliance came with three stipulations: although Jai Singh had already married, the Sisodia wife was to be appointed paṭ rāṇī (senior wife); no daughters born from the union were to be 27

28

Aurangzeb granted the title sawai to Jai Singh and his ancestors in perpetuity. This honorific means “one and a half,” indicating the Kachhwaha king’s superiority over the other Rajput kings. Thomas Holbein Hendley, The Rulers of India and the Chiefs of Rajputana, 1550–1897, reprint (New Delhi: Low Price Publications, 2001), 33. See the introduction to Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707–1857, ed. William Dalrymple and Yuthika Sharma (New York: Asia Society, 2012).

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married to Muslims; and, most significant, any son born of the union would inherit the Kachhwaha throne, even if it entailed bypassing the traditional Rajput practice of inheritance by primogeniture. A son, Madho Singh I, was born to the Sisodia queen in 1728. However, upon Jai Singh’s death, Ishwari Singh, Madho Singh’s older half brother and Jai Singh’s eldest son (who was not born to a Sisodia mother), seized power. A drawn-out battle for the Kachhwaha throne ensued. The emperor, Muhammad Shah, supported Ishwari Singh, lending credibility to his claim.29 Mahārājā Sawai Ishwari Singh precariously ascended the Kachhwaha throne with a pressing need to justify his occupation of it. He responded to his tenuous claim to power by commissioning a chatrī for his father, Jai Singh, that appropriated forms and decorations from the politically charged lieux de me­ moire of his ancestor Rājā Man Singh’s chatrī and Jagat Shiromani temple.30 In 29

30

Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 676. As will be discussed in relation to the Mewar chatrīs, the Sisodias cultivated a proud reputation for not marrying their daughters to Muslims and being the last Rajput dynasty to surrender to the Mughals. When other Rajputs began to offer their daughters to the Mughals in the mid-sixteenth century, the Sisodias respond­ed by refusing to enter into marital alliances with them, not wishing to be asso­ ciated with the taint of this compromise. The shame did not come from marrying daughters to adversaries; the formation of marital alliances was a well-established gesture of reconciliation among warring Rajput houses. Rather, it stemmed from the fact that the Mughals were neither Rajput, nor Hindu, and traditional Rajput marriages are endogamous within caste and religion but exogamous for each gōtrā (lineage). For an analysis of the social, religious, and political intricacies of Mughal-Rajput marriages, see Taft, “Honor and Alliance.” To be one of the first Kachhwaha kings in several generations to marry a Sisodia princess was a great honor for Sawai Jai Singh. However, it should also be noted that the mahārāṇā of Mewar probably had an ulterior motive: the Sisodias surely harbored hopes that any child would be loyal to his mother’s natal home. Neelima Vashishtha claims that Jai Singh’s chatrī was built in the 1880’s under Madho Singh II and designed by Samuel Swinton Jacob. This claim appears to be based on an inaccurate reading of a PWD document and incorrect observations that the base of Jai Singh’s chatrī and the one adjacent to it, that of Ram Singh, are uniform and therefore built at the same time (“The Chhatri (Cenotaph) of Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II of Jaipur: An Appreciation,” in Art and Culture, Vol. I: Endeavours in Interpretation, eds. S.P. Verma and Ahsan Jan Qaisar (New Delhi: Abhinav, 1995), 132). The carving on Ram Singh’s chatrī is far more defined, indicating that is was executed later. Additionally, a photograph of Jai Singh’s chatrī taken by Lala Deen Dayal in the 1880’s, prior to the construction of Ram Singh’s cenotaph shows considerable weathering on the dome, suggesting that it had endured years of weathering. I am grateful to Vibhuti Sachdev and Giles Tillotson for bringing my attention to these points. On the issue of the chatrī bases, which definitively proves they were built at different times, see Sachdev and Tillotson, Building Jaipur: The Making of an Indian City (London: Oxford University Press, 2002), 117; 184.

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so doing, Ishwari Singh was participating in a performance of legitimacy that by the mid-eighteenth century was well established in the Rajput and Mughal courts. The royal Kachhwaha necropolis of Gaitor at Jaipur is located to the north of Sawai Jai Singh’s new planned city. Jai Singh’s memorial inaugurated the new necropolis, laying the city’s founder to rest in his own creation. Jaipur surpasses its parent city, Amber, in sumptuous ornamentation and conspicuous appropriation of classical Mughal forms and motifs, and the Gaitor chatrīs mirror the new capitol’s refined aesthetic. Amber’s chatrīs of rough, gray stone occasionally enlivened with murals are exchanged at Gaitor for uniform white marble ornately carved with high reliefs. The marble for the Gaitor chatrīs comes from Makrana, a quarry under Jaipur’s jurisdiction. Makrana marble is widely regarded as the finest in India and served as the building material for the Taj Mahal. That it had been deemed fit for an imperial tomb doubtlessly made marble from this source an attractive building material to the Kachhwaha kings. Ishwari Singh also conveyed his father’s extraordinary status by including, adjacent to the chatrī, a small, independent pavilion that housed (until the 1970s) the akhaṇd jyoti (eternal flame). This feature was incorporated in all subsequent kings’ chatrīs in the necropolis. Sawai Jai Singh’s chatrī makes clear reference to his ancestor Man Singh through the incorporation of a lofty base, pāñchratanā dome arrangement, and cruciform plan, all features it shares with Man Singh’s chatrī (Fig. 1.6). The dome cluster also echoes the Garuda maṇḍapa at the Jagat Shiromani temple. However, Jai Singh’s chatrī is not a facsimile of the earlier Kachhwaha memorial but a fashionably up-to-date reinterpretation. In addition to the exclusively white-marble construction material, the style of the pillars and domes of Jai Singh’s chatrī show a pronounced later Mughal influence. The sturdy pillars of Man Singh’s chatrī have been exchanged for polygonally planned pillars with foliated blind arches on their bases, similar to those in Shah Jahan’s audience halls at the Red Forts of Delhi and Agra. These features also feature in Rajput palaces and temples built around the same time as the chatrī. While the domes in Man Singh’s chatrī are corbeled, those on Jai Singh’s are true domes. On their exterior they are deeply segmented and highlighted by bands of black, another feature shared by late Shah Jahani structures such as the Delhi Jama Masjid. The shared plans and dome clusters in Man Singh’s and Jai Singh’s chatrīs made the Kachhwaha line of descent material and, by extension, announced that Ishwari Singh was Jai Singh’s rightful heir. The more contemporaneous pillar and dome styles, meanwhile, communicated the increased wealth and urbanity of the chatrī’s patron, Jai Singh’s son, the new king, Ishwari Singh.

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figure 1.6 Chatrī of Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II, commissioned by Mahārājā Ishwari Singh, 1740’s, Gaitor, Jaipur

The base of Jai Singh’s chatrī offers relief friezes of images of royal masculine pastimes and symbols of power. Two panels show one mahout (elephant driver) facing another, both seated on mighty tuskers (Fig. 1.7). These figures goad the elephants, while others seated at the rear hold the pāñchrāngā (five colors) flag.31 Provoked elephant fights were a popular form of entertainment in royal India. Competing states sent their finest elephants to vie in these matches, and the winner was believed to represent the strongest kingdom. Nearly identical elephants and riders feature on the brackets of the Jagat Shiromani’s Garuda maṇḍapa. Two other panels along the base of Jai Singh’s chatrī (Fig. 1.8) offer scenes of a youthful king, identifiable through his distinctive turban and sarpech (plumed turban ornament, traditionally gifted by the Mughal emperor as a sign of imperial favor). He also wears a Vaishnavite tilak (Hindu sectarian mark on the forehead that denotes religious affiliation). The mounted king goads an 31

According to Kachhwaha lore, Rājā Man Singh designed the Kachhwaha flag, which is comprised of five horizontal bands, from five pennants he captured from Afghans and Pathans while on campaign. Akbar then granted Man Singh permission to use the flag, and it remains a sign of Kachhwaha pride in the dynasty’s accomplished ancestor.

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figure 1.7 Elephant fight, relief on the base of the chatrī if Sawai Jai Singh II

elephant into a chase, depicting a game of sātmarī. The face of the mounted sātmarī player is highly stylized and generic. The figure’s ambiguity is likely intentional; the lack of identifying features enable him to simultaneously refer to and conflate the identities of both the commemorated king and the patron, thereby further associating them. The inclusion of the sātmarī scene also references Man Singh, as the motif features in the murals at the Amber Fort and the Bairat pavilion, which he commissioned. Hunting was among the most popular pastimes for the Rajputs (Fig. 1.9). It provided an appropriate way for royal males to keep physically fit and train for battle. Hunting also provided occasions to demonstrate physical prowess, courage, and caches of weapons to an audience of noblemen and imperial guests. The king’s success in the hunt was an index of his skill on the battlefield and ability to rule his kingdom.32 Hunting also alluded to meat eating, which was almost obligatory for the Rajputs and was (and remains) as associated with their communal identity and dharm as drinking alcohol. The Rajputs are among the very few high-caste Hindus who traditionally consume both of these substances, which are often regarded as taboo in orthodox Hinduism. 32

Ramusack, The Indian Princes, 132.

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figure 1.8 Game of satmarī, relief on the base of Sawai Jai Singh II’s chatrī

figure 1.9 Relief on the base of Sawai Jai Singh II’s chatrī

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For the martial Rajputs, there is an innate connection between meat eating, masculinity, and kingship. According to āyurveda, meat, like alcohol, imparts rājas, making its consumer hot and irascible, and infusing him with physical strength and sexual prowess. While of little good to members of other highcaste Hindu communities, such as Brahmins, these qualities were deemed necessary to the Rajputs, whose dharm is to fight, defend their subjects, and produce heirs. Thus consuming meat and alcohol have traditionally been more associated with the Rajputs than any other high-caste Hindu group, and since meat eating and the physical activity of hunting are such potent signifiers of Rajput communal identity, it is not surprising that many royal chatrīs offer graphic hunting scenes.33 The frieze program on the base of Jai Singh’s chatrī presents scenes and symbols of power to convey the Kachhwahas’ physical prowess and bravery (qualities inherent to Rajput kingship) and, ultimately, political legitimacy. As the patron of Jai Singh’s chatrī, the line of succession to Ishwari Singh is made explicit: he too is a son of this house, a descendant of Man Singh, the embodiment of rājādharma, and, finally, he is worthy to occupy the Kachhwaha throne. At the time of the chatrī’s construction, the Kachhwaha nobles and other Rajput houses were divided in their support of the two Kachhwaha half brothers’ claims to the throne. It was therefore incumbent upon Ishwari Singh to advertise his right to rule in a public space that would have been seen by the political rivals who supported his half brother, Madho Singh. The interior of Sawai Jai Singh’s chatrī is empty apart from an undecorated marble slab centrally placed under the main dome, as in all later Kachhwaha chatrīs. The memorial’s interior sculptural program is dominated by a more domestic and sacred thematic content, paralleling the Kachhwaha kings’ private world of the zenānā (palace sections reserved for women and children). Beneath the central dome is a blank marble slab, which Ishwari Singh would have installed during the pūjā pratiṣṭā and is a feature of all the Jaipur royal chatrīs. The sides of the pillars facing the interior of the chatrī offer female figures in high relief, engaged in the same activities as several of those at the Jagat Shiromani temple, including nursing infants (Fig. 1.10). Such intimate depictions of motherhood are, to my knowledge, unique to the Jai Singh’s and Ram Singh’s 33

For the connection between meat and rājas, see Lizzie Collingham, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors (London: Vintage, 2005), 19–22; Harlan, The Goddesses’ Henchmen, 55–56, 142–44; Harlan, Religion and Rajput Women, 127–28; and Lawrence A. Babb, “Mirrored Warriors: On the Cultural Identity of Rajasthani Traders,” International Journal of Hindu Studies 3, no. 1 (April 1999): 17–19.

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figure 1.10

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Pillar facing interior of Sawai Jai Singh’s chatrī with a relief of a woman nursing

chatrīs, further suggesting a specific source—the Jagat Shiromani temple, in which they also feature. Recall also that its extensive sculptural program marks the Jagat Shiromani temple as unusual in its day in Amber, therefore narrowing the possible sources of influences for the sculptures on Jai Singh’ chatrī. Other relief sculptures of women in Sawai Jai Singh’s carry fly whisks, proffer high-necked alcohol bottles (Fig. 1.11), and play musical instruments. Through the iconography of her vīnā and two deer, one figure is identifiable as Todi Ragini. The interior brackets supporting the dome of Jai Singh’s chatrī offer female figures in high relief, attached to oblong frames that terminate at their tops in points, as in the main and Garuda maṇḍapas at the Jagat Shiromani temple. One of these brackets frames a sculpture of a dancing woman fastening her payal that echoes similar figures found in the same location in both

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figure 1.11

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Pillar facing interior of Sawai Jai Singh’s chatrī with relief of male figure holding a bottle and cup

maṇḍapas at the Jagat Shiromani temple (Fig. 1.12). In the chatrī’s interior drum, forty recessed niches frame reliefs of Hindu deities. As in the niches on the drum of Man Singh’s chatrī and in the Jagat Shiromani temple, the majority of the scenes are Vaishnavite, including Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan, fluting, and surmounting Kaliya (Fig. 1.13). The shared content of their decorative programs strongly suggests that the artists of Jai Singh’s chatrī were familiar with the Jagat Shiromani temple and Man Singh’s chatrī. That the Jagat Shiromani temple’s abundance of sculptures distinguishes it from many others in the region further supports that it provided a specific source of influence on the later chatrī’s sculptures. The sculptures of dancing figures and musicians in Jai Singh’s chatrī possibly conveyed an additional layer of meaning beyond their associations to Rājā Man Singh. Their presence may also refer to the traditional responsibilities of kings as outlined in Hindu and Persian manuals of statecraft. For example, the Arthashastra (2.27.28) reports that it is an integral component of rājādharma to financially support the arts, including music, dance, acting, and the courte-

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figure 1.12

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Dancer fastening payal, bracket on the interior of Sawai Jai Singh II’s chatrī

sans’ crafts.34 In addition to his prolific architectural commissions, Jai Singh was well known for his patronage of dance and music.35 The sculptures of dancers and musicians therefore seem to be a further attempt to laud Jai Singh by signaling his fulfillment of this aspect of his rājādharma. The chatrī he commissioned for his father associated Ishwari Singh with two of the most esteemed Kachhwaha ancestors and their rules, which 34 35

Edward Haynes, “Patronage for the Arts and the Rise of the Alwar State,” in The Idea of Rajasthan, 268. Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 676.

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figure 1.13

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Niche on interior drum of Sawai Jai Singh II’s chatrī with scenes from Krishnivite mythology

were characterized by prosperity, favor with the dominant political powers, and prolific artistic patronage. What better stage upon which to promote his dynasty and make his own lineage material than his father’s memorial? Chatrīs built, like this one, against a backdrop of internecine court skirmishes should also be understood as victory memorials that celebrate their patron’s triumph. After all, commissioning a chatrī is the sole prerogative of the new king and heir of the ruler it memorializes. By commissioning Jai Singh’s chatrī, Ishwari Singh at once performed his command of the royal office and expunged Madho Singh’s viable claim to it. In doing so, he had a dynastic model to draw on: recall that the circumstances in which Rājā Man Singh’s own son and successor, Bhao Singh, rose to power were not straightforward and that his commission of Man Singh’s chatrī wrote his deceased elder brother and dissolute nephew out of Kachhwaha history and Amber’s urban fabric. Chatrī patronage could trump sibling rivalry and counter alternate claims to the throne.

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The Temple-Chatrī of Ishwari Singh, the Suicide King

While overseeing the construction of his father’s chatrī, the new Kachhwaha mahārājā, Sawai Ishwari Singh, had other pressing foreign and domestic affairs that vied for his attention. For one, his half brother, Madho Singh, refused to relinquish his birthright. With the aim of taking the throne by force, Madho Singh rallied the support of several powerful Rajput kingdoms, including Marwar, Kotah, and Bundi, as well as several Maratha contingents, to attack Jaipur. The first round of battles favored Ishwari Singh, who promptly erected another victory monument to publicize his triumph: a lofty tower, known as the Ishwari Lat (Fig. 1.14), in the heart of Jai Singh’s city. In raising a tower to announce his victory, Ishwari Singh was participating in a well-established royal Indic performance of conquest and martial prowess. The Ishwari Lat should be understood as a vijay stambha (victory column). Centuries of South Asian rulers raised vijay stambhas to commemorate their military conquests—from the third-century bce emperor Ashoka to the Gupta emperors in the fourth to seventh centuries CE, and several kings of the Delhi sultanates in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. Closer to home for Ishwari Singh was the Mewar ruler Rāṇā Kumbha’s nearly 130-foot tall vijay stambha at Chittorgarh, which he commissioned in celebration of his victory over the sultanate rulers of Malwa and Gujarat in 1440. To this day, Kumbha’s vijay stambha remains the largest and most ornately decorated example of a victory tower in South Asia. With his eponymous vijay stambha, Ishwari Singh proclaimed his victory and right to rule in a vocabulary that would not have been misunderstood by its diverse audience: his subjects, the royals who supported his half brother, and—perhaps most important—that half brother, Madho Singh, himself. It would appear, however, that construction of the Ishwari Lat was premature, an act of hubris. In less than a year, the Jaipur army that Ishwari Singh commanded was defeated. As Maratha forces approached the city gates, ready to storm the capital, twenty-nine-year-old Ishwari Singh resigned himself to defeat and committed suicide.36 After the suicide of his half brother, nothing stood between Madho Singh and the Jaipur throne—apart from Ishwari Singh’s memory. It would have been ideal to erase it completely. However, Ishwari Singh’s two prominent public monuments, Jai Singh’s chatrī and the Ishwari Lat, made that impossible. The next best option for Mahārājā Sawai Madho Singh I (as he then officially became known) was to effectively refashion his half brother’s public memory by engaging in what Kertzer refers to as “rites of degradation” aimed 36

Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 676–79.

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figure 1.14

Ishwari Lat, Jaipur

at deposing the former ruler.37 The stage on which he sought to accomplish this was Ishwari Singh’s chatrī (Fig. 1.15), which Madho Singh himself commissioned. Ishwari Singh’s is the only chatrī commemorating a Jaipur mahārājā that is not located at the Gaitor necropolis. Instead it is situated in a purpose-built compound approximately a mile away, in the neighborhood of Tal Katori. Ishwari Singh died in the Chandra Mahal royal apartments in the Jaipur City Palace. According to a popular legend well known throughout Jaipur, on the night of his suicide Ishwari Singh visited Madho Singh in a dream and instructed him to erect his chatrī in the pleasure garden where it now stands.38 Of course, what the construction of Ishwari Singh’s chatrī, away from Gaitor, achieved was the creation of physical distance between Ishwari Singh and his father, thereby visually removing him from the royal line of succession and freeing 37

38

It is not uncommon for a ruler’s memory or corporeal remains to be subjected to such posthumous “rites of degradation,” as was the case with the Soviet Union’s de-Stalinization campaign in the 1960s. Public sculptures of the former Communist leader were removed, cities named in his honor were renamed, and his body was removed from its original mausoleum and reentombed at a less conspicuous location. Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power, 28–29. The particulars of Ishwari Singh’s mythology and subsequent worship were related to me by Ramtirth Sharma, the hereditary pūjārī (temple priest) who tends to the chatrī-shrine and performs the twice-daily program of worship there (June 25, 2006).

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figure 1.15

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Chatrī of Mahārājā Ishwari Singh, commissioned by Mahārājā Madho Singh I, Jaipur

space close to Jai Singh’s chatrī in the necropolis for Madho Singh’s own eventual cenotaph. A simple, single-domed, square planned pavilion with only four pillars, Ishwari Singh’s chatrī is not, in its form or decorative program, reminiscent of his father’s memorial or those of any of his ancestors. The divergent forms, plans, decorations, and construction materials of Ishwari Singh’s chatrī visually and conceptually distance him from the Kachhwaha throne, which Madho Singh perceived his brother had usurped. In contrast to the luminous white marble used for Jai Singh’s chatrī, Ishwari Singh’s is of local stone faced with polished lime plaster. It also lacks frieze carvings. The chatrī’s decoration consists of jewel-hued murals of Mughal-style scrolling vine work and chaurī (a ceremonial whisk of white horse hair) bearers, as well as a band of Vaishnavite scenes along the drum, including one in which Ishwari Singh himself features (Fig.

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figure 1.16

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Painting of Draupadi’s disrobing on Ishwari Singh’s chatrī with Ishwari Singh

1.16). He is recognizable from contemporary paintings (recognizable portraits of the other Kachhwaha rulers do not feature in their chatrīs at Amber or Gaitor). While this type of painted chatrī was not a fashionable mode of memorializing Rajput royals at the time, it was, perhaps out of economic necessity (plaster and mural work is less expensive than carved marble), the preferred type for the lesser Rajput nobles, ṭhākurs and jagīrdārs. Like Kachhwaha nobles’ chatrīs, Ishwari Singh’s lacks an akhaṇd jyoti, making it the only royal cenotaph in Jaipur without this feature. Beyond simply being depicted in his chatrī, the scene in which Ishawari Singh features sheds light on how Madho Singh manipulated his brother’s memorial to discredit him and establish his own legitimacy. Ishwari Singh is the largest in the scene, and only he and Krishna are nimbated. These laudatory devices initially appear to honor Ishwari Singh. However, the iconography of the scene also identifies it as an episode from the Mahābhārata, which is here exploited to degrade Ishwari Singh. The epic’s heroes, the righteous Pandava brothers gambled away all of their belongings, including their kingdom and their joint wife, Draupadi, to their evil cousins, the Kaurava brothers. As the eldest of the Kaurava sons, whose father was also an eldest son, Duryodhana should have inherited the throne of

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the kingdom of Bharata. However, due to blindness, his father abdicated in favor of his younger brother, the Pandavas’ father. The next king would then be Yudhisthira of the Pandava clan. Duryodhana’s desire for power and belief that the Pandavas had cheated him of his birthright led him to instigate the Kurukshetra War, in which the Pandavas ultimately triumph. Among the most commonly depicted episodes of the Mahābhārata in Indian art is the disrobing of Drupadi. After winning her in a game of dice, Duryodhana seeks to humiliate her and her husbands by exposing her nudity and orders her sarī unwound at court. Draupadi prays to Krishna to preserve her modesty, and when attendants pull at the fabric, through divine intervention, it never ends. Madho Singh I may have perceived parallels between his and Ishwari Singh’s fraternal skirmishes for Jaipur and the dynastic fight between the Pandavas and Kauravas for Bharata. In both cases, relatives battle each other for sovereignty. At the heart of each is the issue of succession by primogeniture, which has been overturned by royal decree. In Madho Singh’s interpretation of the epic, Ishwari Singh is cast as the power hungry Duryodhana who repudiates his father’s designated successor. Such would appear to inform the depiction of Ishwari Singh in his chatrī. As in numerous paintings of the scene, Duryodhana (Ishwari Singh) stands beside Draupadi, whose sarī is unwound by attendants and simultaneously replenished by Krishna who hovers above her. Five men dressed in simple clothing sit on Draupadi’s other side (Duryodhana ordered the Pandavas to dress as slaves). Of course by casting his late brother as Duryodhana, the implicit message is also that Madho Singh is likened to the righteous and rightful king, Yudhisthira. In another departure from the more typical memorialization practices among the Kachhwahas and most other Rajput kings, Ishwari Singh is not simply remembered and honored at the site of his chatrī, but worshipped there, as he is believed by his sizeable community of local devotees to have become a devtā after his suicide. Ramtirth Sharma, the chatrī’s resident pūjārī (temple priest), recounts that after having dreams about his half brother and hearing of a series of miracles both at the chatrī and the suicide site at the Chandra Mahal in the Jaipur City Palace, Madho Singh became convinced that his half brother had become a specific type of devtā, namely a bhomiya, a god who protects the geographical area where he died. Or so the new king would have had his public believe. Madho Singh subsequently established priests at the site, making it a public chatrī-temple to Ishwari Singh, the suicide god-king. The chatrī remains a place of active worship, where devotees go to access him, seeking his boons and blessings.

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It is worth pausing briefly to revisit the subject of posthumous divine transformation in Rajasthani culture, which is discussed in the introduction, and to pose two salient questions: Who exactly undergoes such an extraordinary transformation? And what specifically could Madho Singh hope to gain if this was perceived to have happened to his brother? Among Rajputs, posthumous transformation into semidivine beings is considered fairly common. Such a transformation is evinced by a number of factors, with which most Rajasthanis are well acquainted. The majority of Rajput historic folk gods are martial heroes, and their transformation into certain categories of martial gods (such as the jhunjhars who continued to fight after being decapitated) has the prerequisite of dying on the battlefield. While most bhomiyas are also martyrs, not all are. That is, to be transformed into a bhomiya after death, a Rajput need not necessarily have died in battle or even heroically. Two key factors determine if a Rajput becomes a bhomiya after his death: an unusual or untimely death, such as by an accident or suicide (as was the case with Ishwari Singh), and his posthumous performance of miracles (a category Ishwari Singh similarly fulfilled). As protection and warfare have traditionally been Rajput prerogatives, these extraordinary figures are not scarce in this community. However, while a bhomiya may have been a high-ranking noble in life, he was seldom a king. Because, as explained in the introduction, Rajput kings rarely, after the seventeenth century, served on the front lines, or even led lives of danger, few had the opportunity to die on the battlefield or under unusual circumstances and be transformed into any sort of devtā. Rajput kings typically sent their noblemen to the front in their stead. One of the most common ways to obtain privileged ranks and accompanying grants of land was through the display of extraordinary courage on the battlefield. Warfare was common between the different Rajput states and other parts of India when Rajputs served in the imperial armies, and so these men of rank had ample opportunity to die heroically on the battlefield and consequently become deified heroes. The typical Rajput ṭhikānā (ancestral estate) contains at least one chatrī to a deified heroic ancestor, a former ṭhākur or jagīrdār, who is honored and worshipped on specific days or when ancestors and devotees require his blessings or intervention.39 The style of Ishwari Singh’s chatrī (simple pavilion, stone with mural decoration rather than marble friezes), the program of worship established at its site, and the mythology surrounding him after his death would appear to reflect Sawai Madho Singh’s politically motivated agenda to posthumously demote Ishwari Singh to the status of a lesser noble, a ṭhākur or jagīrdār, which he 39

See the introduction for references related to Rajput posthumous divine transformation.

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would indeed have been had he abided Madho Singh’s preordained claim to the Jaipur throne. In such a scenario, Ishwari Singh would doubtlessly have been granted an extensive swath of land to administer. And had there been opportunity to prove his Rajput mettle, he may well have been posthumously transformed into a devtā and worshipped as such. The presence of his image in his chatrī’s mural program lends additional support to this hypothesis. No other Kachhwaha king is depicted so recognizably (in a portrait whose subject may be corroborated through contemporaneous paintings) in his memorial. Yet the innumerable shrines honoring bhomiyas and other devtās throughout the Rajasthani countryside typically do offer iconic (often stylized portrait) images of the deceased. Some Rajput memorial traditions—for example, those of the Jodha Rathores of Marwar (Jodhpur)—make a sharp distinction between the type of Rajput who is or is not commemorated through figural representation in a memorial. In the Marwari tradition, only individuals who are believed to be posthumously transformed into some sort of devtā are depicted figuratively in their memorials, while kings and other Rajputs are memorialized with a marble pāliyā bearing a pair of footprints in relief. The fact that Ishwari Singh was still young when he died provided an additional boon for Madho Singh and fit conveniently into his “rites of degradation.” Devtās were not typically kings in life, and to become one requires an extraordinary death on the battlefield, by accident, or because of another tragedy while still young.40 Ishwari Singh’s suicide qualified as an extraordinary death, which enabled his brother to politically demote him—counterintuitive as it sounds—from king to a god, cast himself as his father’s legitimate heir, and rewrite Jaipur’s history. Again, as Kertzer aptly notes, if a leader’s assumption of office is marked by the performance of rituals, then ritual must similarly be utilized in their deposition. Ishwari Singh’s assumption of office was marked by the commission of his father’s chatrī, which together with the pūjā pratiṣṭā he intended to perform at the site would have demonstrated that he was Jai Singh’s sole heir. In turn, when Madho Singh took office, he used the memorial he commissioned for Ishwari Singh to ritually depose that same half brother. Sawai Madho Singh I was succeeded in turn by his eldest son, Mahārājā Sawai Prithvi Singh II (r. 1768–78), who died at the age of sixteen, and his second son, Mahārājā Sawai Pratap Singh II (r. 1778 - 1803). It is unknown which of these sons patronized Madho Singh’s white marble chatrī, which is located 40

Lindsey Harlan notes that in the songs Rajput women sing to divine ancestral heroes, they frequently emphasize the subject’s handsome appearance and bridegroom’s attire: qualities associated with youth (The Goddesses’ Henchmen, 165).

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figure 1.17

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Chatrī of Mahārājā Madho Singh I, late-eighteenth century, Gaitor, Jaipur

next to his father’s, as he doubtlessly would have wished (Fig. 1.17). Unsurprisingly, Madho Singh’s chatrī offers a cruciform plan and pāñchratanā dome cluster, which it shares with the chatrī of Rājā Man Singh I. Madho Singh’s chatrī is of a smaller scale than his father’s, but apart from the incorporation of Shah Jahani–style foliated arches, the formal and decorative programs offer a unified aesthetic with his father’s chatrī. The shared forms, decoration, and construction materials were doubtless intended to associate the two Kach­ hwaha kings and elide the rule of Ishwari Singh. Both chatrīs also feature reliefs showing iconic episodes from Vaishnavite mythology and hunting scenes framed in blind niches on their interiors. Like the other Jaipur mahārājās, Madho Singh I’s eldest son, Prithvi Singh II, was memorialized with a chatrī at Gaitor. What is unusual about this chatrī is its form and building material (Fig. 1.18). While honorably situated in proximity to his father’s chatrī, Prithvi Singh’s is built on a much smaller scale, of stone covered in white plaster, and offers a simple cubicle form, with only four pillars and a single dome. In form and building material, it has more in common with the chatrī of his paternal uncle, Ishwari Singh, than with the other royal Kach­ hwaha chatrīs. Prithvi Singh’s chatrī was patronized by his younger brother and successor, Pratap Singh.

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figure 1.18

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Chatrī of Sawai Prithvi Singh, commissioned by Mahārājā Pratap Singh, late-eighteenth century, Gaitor, Jaipur

Although Pratap Singh’s path to the throne was far smoother than his father’s, the court he inherited was initially divided in its support between the official new king and a child born to Prithvi Singh posthumously.41 It is therefore likely Pratap Singh felt a pressing need to both honor his brother’s memory (at least publicly) and deemphasize the fact that he was the rightful heir to the throne and had occupied it before him, and that Prithvi Singh’s own son was by rights Jaipur’s legitimate ruler. It is standard Rajput funerary practice to honor royal children through diminutive memorials, and Prithvi Singh would not have 41

Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 682–83.

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assumed full titles and power until the age of eighteen. In contrast to his uncle, Ishwari Singh, Prithvi Singh is neither represented figuratively, nor worshipped as a god at the site of his chatrī. However, the fact that his chatrī closely resembles his uncle’s may be more than coincidence. It may reflect Pratap Singh’s desire to downplay, although not denigrate, his brother’s role in Jaipur’s history. After all, Pratap Singh did not have to look far for examples of how to manipulate history through the medium of funerary architecture. The chatrīs of the next two Jaipur mahārājās—Pratap Singh and Sawai Jagat Singh (r. 1803–18)—were also constructed at Gaitor in proximity to Sawai Jai Singh’s and are of the same scale and form as Madho Singh’s. These kings’ successors, and thus the patrons of their chatrīs, assumed their offices in accordance with the traditional Rajput system of primogeniture and did not need to justify their positions of power. While lavish and costly, the decorative programs of these three chatrīs are stiff and repetitive. Their drums offer rows of blind arches framing motifs recycled from early Kachhwaha chatrīs: stiffly modeled hunting scenes, familiar episodes from Vaishnavite mythology, and dancing women. Many are blank. Thus a pattern begins to emerge, one echoed in royal chatrī baghs throughout north India: Rajput kings who sit securely on their thrones almost always commission chatrīs similar to those of their immediate ancestors. Kertzer’s analysis offered at the beginning of this chapter fits particularly well with the chatrī commissions of these two generations of Jaipur’s rulers. Continuity in their memorials communicated continuity in the administration and the seamless transfer of power from one generation to the next. By contrast, as demonstrated through Jai Singh’s and Ishwari Singh’s chatrīs, disruptions in established formal and decorative programs and construction materials bespeak an anxious patron.

A Triumphal Homecoming: The Frieze Program on Mahārājā Sawai Madho Singh II’s Chatrī

With the exception of Ishwari Singh’s and Prithvi Singh’s memorials, the chatrīs of the Kachhwaha kings of Jaipur remained consistent in form, decoration, and building material from the construction of Jai Singh II’s cenotaph to the late nineteenth century, when the Kachhwaha darbār was again beset by “dramatic discontinuities.” Like several Kachhwaha kings before them, Sawai Madho Singh II (r. 1880–1922) and Sawai Man Sing II (r. 1922–70) responded to threats to their rules through the chatrīs they commissioned for their predecessors.

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The chatrī that commemorates Madho Singh II offers a dramatically increas­ ed scale; a unique, politically informed frieze program; and red-sandstone and white-marble construction material. Both Madho Singh II and his successor, Man Singh II, were adopted, and their predecessors’ selection of heirs was contested by members of the Kachhwaha court. In very different ways Madho Singh and Man Singh exploited their chatrī commissions to announce their legitimate power and to maintain Kertzer’s “symbolic continuity” by visually integrating themselves with the Kachhwaha lineage. When the eighth Kachhwaha ruler of Jaipur, Mahārājā Sawai Ram Singh II (r. 1835–80), reached old age without an heir, the Kachhwaha line, which had ruled uninterrupted since its establishment in the eleventh century, was suddenly faced with a crisis. Such incidents are common in Rajput history, and when a king neared old age issueless, protocol dictated that he adopt a son from a ṭhikānā that shared a close bloodline with the royal house. In the case of the Jaipur Kachhwahas, it had long been established that an heirless king would appoint a successor from among the sons of the ṭhākur of Jhalai ṭhikānā. Ram Singh, however, flouted convention and appointed as his heir Kayam Singh, later renamed Madho Singh II, the second son of the ṭhākur of Isarda.42 Throughout his reign, Madho Singh II was dogged by the fact that he had been a less than obvious choice as successor to one of Jaipur’s most accomplished mahārājās. Sawai Ram Singh II is remembered as his state’s first modern ruler. Through his close rapport with the British, he had instituted radical developments in the fields of education (three new colleges were opened during his rule) and public facilities, including gasworks and waterworks and public roads. Additionally, Ram Singh was a prolific patron of the arts, particularly painting and architecture. He began construction of one of the first Indian museums, the Albert Hall Museum, and was himself an accomplished photographer.43 Madho Singh II certainly had large shoes to fill and doubtless felt obliged to continually communicate his worthiness to rule. This need to ratify his legitimacy appears to have informed many of his public commissions: notably the completion of the Albert Hall Museum and furthering institutions of modernization and educational projects in his state. Chatrīs, however, remained 42 43

R.P. Singh and Kanwar Rajpal Singh, Sawai Madho Singh II of Jaipur: Life and Legend (New Delhi: Roli, 2005), 1–3. Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 931. For more on Ram Singh II’s photographs, particularly those he took of the women in the women’s quarters of the palace, see Laura Weinstein, “Exposing the Zenana: Maharaja. Sawai Ram Singh II’s Photographs of Women in Purdah,” History of Photography 34, no.1 (2010): 2–16.

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figure 1.19

Chatrīs of Sawai Jai Singh (R.) and Sawai Ram Singh (commissioned by Mahārājā Madho Singh II, 1880’s), Gaitor, Jaipur

among the most potent communicators of legitimacy among the Rajputs, and Madho Singh II exploited this with the construction of the cenotaph for his adopted father, Ram Singh. Madho Singh II enlisted Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob, Jaipur’s preeminent colonial architect, who also designed the Albert Hall for the commission.44 Ram Singh’s chatrī (Fig. 1.19) is located adjacent to that of Jai Singh, the celebrated Kachhwaha ancestor who founded Jaipur. To further associate Ram Singh with Jai Singh, the bases of both memorials are fused together into one continuous platform. Ram Singh’s chatrī offers the same repertoire of animated hunting scenes, elephant fights, and sātmarī games on its base, and dancing and serving women as well as scenes from Vaishnavite mythology on its interior. The foliated arches and static frieze programs on the chatrīs of the rulers that separate these two kings of Jaipur are conspicuously absent from Ram Singh’s chatrī. In fact, Ram Singh’s chatrī is a near facsimile of Jai Singh’s. The only (and nearly undetectable) difference between the two is the presence on the base of Ram Singh’s chatrī of two princes with Shaivite tilaks on their foreheads (Fig. 1.20). The distinctive sectarian mark is appropriate here, as Ram 44

Sachdev and Tillotson, Building Jaipur, ibid.

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figure 1.20

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Detail of face of a prince playing satmarī on the base of Sawai Ram Singh’s chatrī

Singh II was a well-known devotee of Shiva, which he communicated through the prominent Shaivite tilak that is ubiquitous in his painted and photographed portraits. The Kachhwahas are a Vaishnavite dynasty, and Ram Singh II was alone in his Shaivism Despite the near century that separates the rules of Jai Singh and Ram Singh II, the two mahārājās are associated in death through Madho Singh II’s need to reference the dynasty’s glorious past as a means to legitimize his own position. The proximity and shared formal and decorative programs of these two chatrīs reiterates Ram Singh’s descent from Sawai Jai Singh. By lionizing his adopted father, Ram Singh II, Madho Singh, the patron of the chatrī, would have made challenging Ram Singh’s authority, and thus the sagacity in his choice of successor, difficult. Mahārājā Sawai Madho Singh II thereby established a practice in Jaipur state for adopted sons and heirs to memorialize their predecessors and silence the voices of dissent through chatrī patronage. This was a model that Madho Singh’s own adopted son would follow. Madho Singh II was to become one of Jaipur’s most progressive and urbane, yet deeply religious, rulers, being a devout follower of the state deity, Govind ji, a form of Krishna. Accounts of the Jaipur camp at Edward VII’s coronation

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darbār in Delhi in 1902 provide insight into how Madho Singh II reconciled the traditional with the modern and international. His camp is described as essentially Indian in style and … arranged in the characteristic form of an old Rajput encampment … but the refinement and elegance of his camp, with its carefully planned Italian gardens in front, indicated that its principle occupant, while preserving his traditions intact was ready to make the fullest use of what he had learned by contact with Europeans, while there was no conflict between the two forms of civilization.45 Vibuthi Sachdev describes how Madho Singh deftly forged these twin pillars of his royal identity (modernity and tradition) as a strategy to placate various groups of critics.46 In addition to the expected dissenters who challenged his adoption, Madho Singh met new voices of protest from nationalists who were emerging in the princely states in the early-twentieth century. Members of this movement criticized the Indian rulers as British stooges and autocrats who exploited their subjects. The embrace of modern technologies and institutions in his state communicated Madho Singh’s dedication to the welfare of his subjects and that he was not a puppet of the colonial government. Madho Singh’s adherence to well-established rituals and other customs secured his place as a dharmik Rajput king and associated him with the Kachhawaha kings before him. Before the 1902 Delhi darbār, Madho Singh had been summoned to attend Edward VII’s 1901 coronation in London. An official, imperial order, it could hardly be declined. However, the journey posed serious threats to the mahārājā’s rule due to both the political situation in Jaipur at the turn of the twentieth century and traditional orthodox Hindu notions regarding religious purity and pollution. Through a carefully crafted propaganda program, Madho Singh II transformed the event into the greatest triumph of his political career. Recall that as Ram Singh II’s adopted heir from an unconventional source, Madho Singh’s political legitimacy was tenuous. Therefore his absence from the kingdom for the many months the journey entailed would leave it unguarded and open to insurrection. Perhaps even more troubling was that a high-caste Hindu traveling out of India risked the threat of ritual defilement through what he ate, drank, and touched. The mahārājā, and his priests and ministers, therefore carefully custom-tailored the journey to ensure that he 45 46

Nath, Jaipur, 112–13. “Negotiating Modernity in the Princely State of Jaipur,” South Asian Studies 28, no 2, (2012): 171–81.

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was able to maintain his orthodox Hindu habits. For example, while on the trip Madho Singh drank and bathed only in gaṇgā jal (water from the Ganges river), which was carried in two enormous silver urns now displayed in the Jaipur City Palace Museum. Anything he ate was first offered to the mūrti (sacred image) of Govind ji, which was removed from the deity’s state temple in Jaipur and ensconced in its own suite on the royal ocean liner. After being offered to Govind ji, the food was considered prasād (an edible offering sacralized by first being offered to the divine), thereby removing any possibility of spiritual taint. Govind ji’s mūrti preceded Madho Singh in all the official state functions, thus conveying the notion that the mahārājā’s potentially defiling journey was not only divinely sanctioned but made as the dīvān of the divine.47 To silence potential critics back in his home state, and assure his subjects that he had acted as an ideal ambassador and had not broken any caste taboos, Madho Singh commissioned the munshī (court recorder) Shivnarayan Saksena to write a propagandist booklet, Jaipur Naresh kī England Yātrā (“The Exalted King’s Journey to England”). The work is in the style of a diary and details the mahārājā’s daily activities throughout the journey. Saksena presents Madho Singh’s triumphal return to his capital and the procession back to the City Palace as the dramatic climax of the entire voyage. Jaipur Naresh is written in simple Hindi, was widely published and circulated, and reasonably priced, thereby ensuring a wide audience for it. The choice of venue upon which to showcase Madho Singh’s diplomatic maneuverings was astute as it targeted Jaipur’s growing literate masses, who took advantage of India’s emerging popular print culture. Furthermore, printing was associated with modernity in early-twentieth century India and modernity and the spread of literacy. Like his own adopted father, Ram Singh II, Madho Singh II reached old age without a natural heir and was thus forced to adopt. Again like his predecessor, he subverted convention by overlooking the ṭhikānā of Jhalai in favor of his nephew, Mor Mukut Singh, later renamed Sawai Man Singh II, who was, like himself, from the ṭhikānā of Isarda. Perhaps to delay the inevitable uproar, Madho Singh withheld publicly announcing his successor until 1921, the year before his death.48 And so history repeated itself in Jaipur state. Predictably, 47

48

Nath, Jaipur, 111. Giles Tillotson, Jaipur Nama: Tales from the Pink City (New Delhi: Penguin, 2006), 195–203. As will be discussed at greater length in the Bikaner and Mewar sections, Hindu kings frequently presented themselves, not as their state’s highest authority, but as the dīvān of their iṣṭdevā (dynastic deity), who was the true ruler (Allen and Dwivedi, “Mother and Father of the People,” 49). Tillotson, Jaipur Nama., 216–17.

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figure 1.21

Chatrī of Sawai Madho Singh II, commissioned by Mahārājā Man Singh II, 1920’s, Gaitor, Jaipur

upon Madho Singh’s death many of the Jaipur nobles did not support the new king, who was still a minor. Thus, like several of the Jaipur rulers before him, Mahārājā Sawai Man Singh II was faced with having to defend his claim to the throne. His response, which was doubtless guided by his palace retainers, was conventional: building a chatrī for his adopted father (Fig. 1.21). The memorial’s style and message, however, were highly innovative. Although he was only eleven years old at the time of his predecessor’s death, history records that Man Singh II took an active role in his commission; he was involved in stylistic decisions and approved all the architectural plans before construction began.49 Madho Singh II had stipulated in his will that his chatrī was to be built adjacent to the memorials of his two beloved morganatic sons, Ganga ji and Gopal ji, who died of smallpox in adolescence.50 Madho Singh had also commissioned a chatrī complex, behind Ganga ji’s and Gopal ji’s chatrīs, for all the other sons who were born of his five official wives and eighteen official mistresses. Each of these sons died before reaching adulthood. 49 50

PWD Files 6–8 (1928), Rajasthan State Archives, Jaipur. Ibid.

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A son born of the union between a Rajput ruler and a non-Rajput wife or concubine is referred to as a lāljī. Although according to convention they could never inherit the throne, lāljīs could inherit land, titles, and prestige, and be commemorated through chatrīs. The lāljīs’ lower-ranking, half-Rajput status is also reflected in royal mortuary practices throughout Rajasthan. While they may be commemorated through elaborate cenotaphs, whose forms and building materials mirror those of royal Rajputs, they are typically not cremated in the royal śmaśān. Their chatrīs are usually constructed away from those of their pure-blooded Rajput relatives and often in a purpose-built compound, which reflects their aristocratic, albeit comparatively lower, social status. Therefore, in commissioning his lāljī sons’ chatrīs in the exclusive, royal necropolis at Gaitor, Madho Singh II again flouted established practice. Sawai Madho Singh II’s own chatrī, which was constructed between 1924 and 1928,51 departs from convention in its high degree of personalization (Fig. 25). The cenotaph’s contemporary Indo-Saracenic architectural style and frieze program highlight Madho Singh’s modern, cosmopolitan rule. This is not to say that the memorial is completely devoid of references to the past. On the contrary, quotations from earlier Kachhwaha chatrīs and temples at the former capital of Amber also feature in the memorial, and, as with Madho Singh’s encampment at the 1902 Delhi darbār, are harmoniously integrated with contemporaneous motifs, several of which are European in origin. Madho Singh’s is the only two-storied chatrī at Gaitor. The lower story is of red sandstone and serves as an elongated base with internal and external ambulatories. The upper story is open, with a centrally placed white-marble chatrī. Smaller domed pavilions are situated at each of the four corners. The monument is constructed of the highest-quality materials: red sandstone from Kaurali and Makrana marble.52 The chatrī’s neo-Mughal form was not so much a bow to tradition as an expression of modernity, as it referenced the Mughal-revival Indo-Saracenic architectural style developed under the Raj and favored for official commissions from the late-nineteenth century onward. The Indo-Saracenic style is a hybrid, fusing elements from the Mughal repertoire—decorative chatrīs, chajjās, Shah Jahani–style domes, and the red sandstone and white marble building material—with those from the European Gothic, including, in this case, the arches on the upper level and the smaller pavilions, and several sculptures. Throughout the Indian princely states, particularly those in Rajputana, the Indo-Saracenic style was widely adopted and funded by the princes with enthusiastic support 51 52

Ibid. Ibid.

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from the Raj. In commissioning buildings in what was essentially a colonial style, the Rajputs visually communicated their allegiance to the new imperial power. Both Madho Singh II and Man Singh II fostered congenial relations with the British, which they translated into stone through their public commissions in the Indo-Saracenic architectural style, such as the Albert Hall Museum. As with the structures at Amber that are associated with Rājā Man Singh, the Albert Hall Museum and other colonial-era buildings in Jaipur may similarly be understood as sites of memory that signify the Kachhwahas privileged position in the British imperial court. It is therefore fitting that an Indo-Saracenic style be employed for the memorial of Madho Singh, who was one of its most enthusiastic Rajput patrons and a supporter of the British Empire. In selecting this style for his father’s chatrī, Man Singh II announced his own refined imperialinspired taste, as well as his own commitment to the empire that developed it. Madho Singh II’s chatrī incorporates additional motifs that are amalgamated into the already hybrid Indo-Saracenic style. European-style, rather than indigenous-style, sculptures of lions in the round flank each of the structure’s directional entrances; relief panels on the lower ambulatory offer chubby putti blowing trumpets as they recline against European baroque-style scrolling vegetal work; clusters of grapes dangle from the capitals in the upper story of the chatrī and buxom, topless Victorian-style angels are seated along the pillar bases on the upper story (Fig. 1.22). These features are doubtless the result of Madho Singh’s and Man Singh’s exposure to European design while abroad (Man Singh spent several years in England, where he went to boarding school). Several of the chatrī’s carved marble capitals bear striking similarity to those in the Albert Hall Museum, indicating that if they were not the products of the same workshop, the carvers were at the very least familiar with those in the museum. Nestled alongside these imported motifs are elements excerpted from the Kachhwaha past, including figures in high relief of female chaurī bearers and Krishna that are traceable to some of the oldest extant Kachhwaha architectural commissions, such as Raja Man Singh’s Jagat Shiromani temple at Amber. Along the octagonally planned base of Madho Singh’s chatrī, a location traditionally reserved for friezes of hunting scenes in Kachhwaha cenotaphs, are eight frieze panels depicting a royal procession (Figs 1.23–1.26). Caparisoned elephants, horses, camels, musicians, standard and flag bearers, infantrymen, and other attendants process alongside empty vehicles, including palanquins, bullock carts, and a European-style buggy. As with the other Kachhwaha chatrīs at Gaitor, Madho Singh is not represented figurally on his memorial. Official correspondence from the Jaipur State

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figure 1.22

79

Pillar base on upper level of Madho Singh II’s chatrī

Public Works Department regarding the construction of this chatrī reveals that the original plans included sixteen panels around the interior of the drum that would offer portraits of Jaipur’s previous rulers.53 Such a program would have visually underscored the trajectory of the royal Kachhwaha line, from the earliest rulers of the state through Madho Singh II, who is memorialized through the chatrī, and finally to Man Singh II, his heir and patron of the chatrī. The file, however, is silent on the subject of why the portrait scheme was aban53

PWD, File 763 (1928), “Cenotaph of His Late Highness Maharaja Madho Singh ji: Construction and Pūjā Pratiśta in Connection with the Placing of the Charan Chōkī,” 15, Rajasthan State Archives, Jaipur.

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figure 1.23

Base of Sawai Madhi Singh II’s chatrī depicting the royal reentry into Jaipur. The procession has crossed the Sangeneri gate and is in front of the Hanuman temple.

figure 1.24

Parade of Madho Singh’s reentry into Jaipur passing through the Johari bazaar. Relief on the base of Sawai Madho Singh II’s chatrī.

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figure 1.25

The royal reentry procession passes before the Hawa Mahal.

figure 1.26

Madho Singh II’s procession into Jaipur passing the Naya Mahal

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doned. Nor does it mention whose idea it was in the first place. Still, considering that with the notable exception of Ishwari Singh recognizable portraits of Kachhwaha kings do not appear in their chatrīs, the portrait cycle would have been inappropriate. The processional frieze is clearly located in the main artery of Jaipur’s Old City, which is recognizable through detailed depictions of architectural landmarks. With such care was taken to render familiar structures, the frieze program must depict a historical event. The presence of empty vehicles initially appears to be a reference to death, suggesting a depiction of Madho Singh’s śav yātrā. According to a Kachhwaha custom that had been in place since the dynasty relocated to Jaipur, Madho Singh’s corpse was carried from the City Palace, accompanied by a procession of state dignitaries and members of the public, through the city and to the cremation ground at Gaitor. A contemporaneous account of the śav yatrā by Gulab Chand Dhaddha, a khabarnāvīs (palace recorder), outlines the preparation of the corpse and lists the figures who participated in the funeral cortege and the route it followed to Gaitor.54 Dhaddha mentions the traditional gifts—an elephant, horses, bullock carts, and palanquins—made to Brahmins and others involved in the mahārājā’s last rites, and the appearance of the same in the frieze program appears to lend support to interpreting it as a depiction Madho Singh’s śav yatrā Dhaddha also refers to Man Singh II’s presence in the śav yatrā, which would publicly reaffirm his position as Madho Singh’s successor.55 As noted in the introduction, by the early- twentieth century newly appointed Rajput kings had begun to break with royal mourning and mortuary traditions and play a more public role in their predecessors’ funerary rituals by accompanying the corpses up to the cremation ground. While the new Kachhwaha mahārājā did not accompany Madho Singh II’s funeral cortege all the way to Gaitor, he did follow the corpse to the Sireh Deori, the main gate between the palace complex and the city.56 Although it was still unconventional in the early-twentieth century for a Rajput king to be seen by his subjects in the presence of the late king’s corpse, it was an established practice for other Hindu sons and heirs, and it was vital that Man Singh, whose position was contested, exploit such a public, performative practice. Additionally, as other Rajput kings had begun to

54 55 56

Nagar Parikrama, “Dyodi ke Darwaza Dandh: Madho Singh ki Antim Yatra,” Rajasthan Patrika, February 4, 1991. Ibid. Ibid.

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take more of a public role in their father’s funerary rituals, Man Singh II in so doing broadcast to his subjects his commitment to modernity and reform. While it is tempting to accept that the base of the chatrī offers a visual narrative of Madho Singh’s final journey, Saksena’s state-sponsored account of the mahārājā’s journey abroad, in his Jaipur naresh kī England yātrā, offers an alternate and more tenable reading. The text provides a meticulously detailed account of Madho Singh’s return to his capital in a triumphal parade. Indeed, the mahārājā’s homecoming is highlighted as the culmination of the long journey. Madho Singh II had been one of the first Indian kings to travel abroad. He successfully fulfilled his role as the emperor’s dutiful subject while concomitantly managing to avoid ritual defilement. Negotiating these two disparate cultural requirements was a major political feat, the success of which Madho Singh II publicly announced to his subjects through his triumphant reentry into his capital, Jaipur. Moreover, by “wearing two hats”—dharmik Rajput king and dutiful colonial subject—Madho Singh may very well have been reinterpreting Rājā Man Singh’s aplomb in negotiating between the two audiences he was compelled to appease (his citizens of Amber and the Mughal emperor). And since Madho Singh II was adopted, the reference one of the most illustrious Kachhwaha ancestors would further bolster his own legitimacy claims. Saksena records that Madho Singh and his retinue were met by his adoring subjects, who held flags and banners upon which were emblazoned “Welcome Home,” and “Long Live the King.” The royal party was joined at the railway station by the mahārājā’s elite military unit, the transport corps. Saksena also carefully records the presence of horses, elephants, cannons, and rifles, to give the mahārājā a regal, military-style reception. Merchants watched the procession from their homes above their shops in the bazaar.57 And indeed this entire spectacle is recorded in the frieze tableaux on the chatrī’s base. Saksena then recounts the royal return to the City Palace. The procession entered the city through the Sanganeri Gate, which is one of the most convincing pieces of evidence that the frieze program depicts the mahārājā’s reentry into his capital. This landmark is distinguished by a pointed central arch, an upper section capped by a band of merlons, and uppermost corners punctuated by two decorative chatrīs. The royal procession depicted in the frieze on Madho Singh’s chatrī stands beside just such a structure. After entering the city via the Sanganeri Gate, the first landmark is the Hanuman temple, the city’s principle one to this deity. Accordingly, Hanuman, enshrined in a temple, features prominently in one tableau as the frieze procession unfolds. Elements 57

Shivnarayan Saksena, “Jaipur mai Pravesh” and “Sahar mai Pravesh,” in Jaipur naresh kī England yātrā (Jaipur, 1922).

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depicted in the pageant, such as the royal insignias of power and prestige, and their sequence, mirror traditional royal parades still held in Jaipur today. This panel is clearly the beginning of the narrative, as it is customary for the state pāñchrāngā flag, with its distinctive five and a half bands of contrasting colors, to be carried from atop an elephant at the beginning of royal processions.58 The Hanuman temple stands at the beginning of Johari Bazaar, which unfolds over four successive panels. Densely packed on both sides with shops and other businesses, the Johari Bazaar is one of Jaipur’s vital commercial arteries. Madho Singh offered merchants in his state incentives to set up businesses in the capital, and commerce consequently thrived during his rule. The purpose of so carefully depicting the bazaar in the frieze is thus twofold: to make the location and occasion recognizable, and to refer to another of the mahārājā’s accomplishments. Sachdev also comments on how, as they were the economic bedrock of his state, Madho Singh was compelled to constantly appease the merchants of Jaipur, lest they instigate protests and close their shops, or relocate to another state.59 This would mean Jaipur’s economic ruin. The acknowledgement of the state’s merchants on a royal chatrī may have been intended as flattery. We know that members of this community probably did view the tableau during the chatrī’s inauguration, as lists of guests preserved in the Jaipur archives record names that are recognizably Baniya (members of the hereditary business class). Saksena’s account then describes the procession passing through the Sireh Deori Bazaar, which is identifiable on the chatrī’s base through the depiction of the Old City’s most distinctive landmark, the Hava Mahal (Palace of the Winds), with its undulating facade. The narrative sequence concludes in front of the Naya Mahal. This neoclassical-style structure designed at the end of the nineteenth century by Samuel Swinton Jacob was built to house the Jaipur ­Museum, again visually linking the ruler with one of his most successful commissions. The frieze program on the base of the chatrī is a translation into stone of Madho Singh II’s reentry into his capital, mirroring the route Saksena describes. Widely disseminated as the text was within Jaipur, it is likely that the chatrī’s sculptors were guided by the narrative outlined in Jaipur Naresh kī England Yātrā. 58

59

I am grateful to Pankaj Sharma, director of the Mahārājā Sawai Man Singh II Museum at the Jaipur City Palace, for information on the royal insignia of power displayed in the Jaipur parades, the processional routes, and the traditional sequence of participants in these events. The half band on the Jaipur state flag refers to the Jaipur king’s title sawai (literally “one and a half”). Ibid. 172.

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Many of the annual parades held in Jaipur since the city’s foundation—including those on holidays such as Teej and Dussehra—begin at the City Palace and follow a different route from the one Saksena describes and that is depicted on the chatrī’s base. Holiday parades do not come into proximity of the Sanganeri Gate, nor the Johari Bazaar. Similarly, royal śav yatrās do not pass these locations, the Hava Mahal, or the Naya Mahal en route to Gaitor. As the City Palace inventories record, royal precessions held in Jaipur on festive occasions such as holidays and royal homecomings have historically included empty buggies, litters, and carriages. The empty vehicles were, and remain, a feature in royal parades throughout the former Rajput states, intended to showcase the king’s possession of these conveyances and, by extension, his wealth and ability to distribute sustenance to his subjects.60 The empty vehicles feature on the base of Madho Singh II’s chatrī because they were present during the historical moment it records, and indicate that the tableau’s subject is a celebration of the king’s triumphal return. Madho Singh II’s chatrī presents an unconventional form of Rajput memorialization. Although uncommon, other Rajput chatrīs, such as those in Alwar state (discussed in the following chapter), do offer depictions of historical events. The difference, however, is that they offer scenes of the deceased king in more iconic courtly situations, such as his inaugural rāj tīlak ceremony, hunting, or enthroned in darbār. Throughout history newly appointed Rajput kings have responded to their critics, justified their positions, and quelled their own legitimacy anxieties by commissioning grand memorials for their predecessors. The Rajput chatrīs are as much for the benefit of the living as they are for the deceased. That is, they offer future generations as much insight into the patrons’ political aspirations as they do into the character and accomplishments of the person memorialized. This was certainly true for Man Singh II’s chatrī commission. The frieze program on Madho Singh II’s chatrī immortalizes the mahārājā in the most glorious moment of his political career. The royal reentry procession into Jaipur refers directly to the political triumph that preceded this event: Madho Singh’s successful journey to Edward VII’s coronation and back. Throughout the journey, the mahārājā displayed his perspicacity and religious devotion to the world. He was never more beloved and esteemed by his subjects than at the moment of his triumphal homecoming. A ruler with such an accomplishment to his credit would certainly not have made a mistake in something as critical as his choice of a successor. By commissioning a chatrī for his father, Man Singh II was subscribing to an established Rajput practice of publicly 60

Personal communication with Pankaj Sharma.

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figure 1.27

Chatrī of Mahārājā Man Singh II, commissioned by Mahārājā Bhawani Singh, Gaitor, Jaipur

announcing the royal line of succession. In his choice of frieze program, Man Singh essentially underscored his own legitimacy to the throne that Madho Singh II had occupied. Mahārājā Sawai Man Singh II died in England in 1970, and his corpse was flown back to Jaipur to be cremated at Gaitor.61 While burial or cremation in the deceased’s capital city is a common enough occurrence among kings and commoners throughout the world, the fact that Man Singh’s corpse was cremated at the dynastic cremation ground has additional significance in the Rajput context. It allowed his son and heir, Mahārājā Sawai Bhawani Singh (r. 1970–2011), to commission his father’s memorial at the exact location where the dāh saṃskāra was conducted (Fig. 1.27). The importance of conducting the final rights in the dynastic śmaśān and later erecting a chatrī on that exact location is evidenced by the fact that in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with the advent of rapid transport, countless other Rajput kings have been conveyed back to their home states for their last rites. As demonstrated in the case of the Maratha mahārājā Madho Rao Scindia’s two cremations (described in the introduction), the cremated ashes were sent back to the late king’s home 61

R.P. Singh and Kanwar Rajpal Singh, Sawai Madho Singh II, 173.

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state when this was not possible. There the ashes were recremated in the dynastic śmaśān, underscoring the importance of locating the physical remains in the royal necropolis in the land the late king ruled, and of performing the ritual dāh saṃskāra at the site. Bhawani Singh was the eldest son of Man Singh II. He had no rival claimants to the Jaipur throne, and his path to it was uncontested. In fact, with the abolition of the Rajputs’ political prerogatives, it cannot be truly said that there was even a throne to inherit by the time he did, in 1970. With no need to advertise his legitimacy, and no inherent political authority to express, it should come as no surprise that Bhawani Singh, the common Indian citizen, patronized a chatrī for his father that, while elegantly carved from Makrana marble, offers a decorative program that is devoid of politically charged symbolism. The only decoration on the otherwise minimalist structure includes Sawai Man Singh’s emblem: a sun, which refers to the Kachhwahas’ Suryavanshi lineage; and an eagle, under which is inscribed in English, “Sawai Man Guards,” referring to the elite troops of Jaipur state that Man Singh personally accompanied to the front in support of the British in World War II. Reliefs of polo ponies circle the interior of the drum, a reference to Man Singh’s love of the game and the fact that he died while playing it. The chatrī’s austere decorative program refers to Man Singh II’s military career and princely leisure activities, while references to kingship are absent, reflecting the changing role of Rajputs after Indian independence. Bhawani Singh was the first Kachhwaha ruler to personally conduct his father’s dāh saṃskāra. The fact that by the mid-twentieth century new Rajput kings had begun to perform their father’s crematory rituals and essentially behave as nonroyal Hindu sons and heirs reflects the narrowing of the gap between king and commoner in modern India. This social gap was officially bridged in 1947 with Indian independence and the dissolution of the princely states, which divested the princes of their titles and privileges, thereby literally transforming them into commoners. And yet, while Rajputs are no longer officially rulers of their lands and their wealth has been sharply reduced, members of the community are justifiably proud of their history and enjoy enormous social capital. It is therefore unsurprising that even after Independence Raj­ puts from royal and aristocratic families continue to memorialize their ancestors through chatrīs. If a chatrī’s decorative program and architectural form can be exploited to convey its patron’s political legitimacy, or to posthumously demote kings into divine aristocrats, what does the complete absence of a chatrī reveal about the memory of the deceased? Apart from Ishwari Singh, all the Kachhwaha mahārā­jās of Jaipur but Sawai Jai Singh III (r. 1819 -35) are memorialized at

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Gaitor. Jai Singh III is remembered for his overindulgence in intoxicants, as a philanderer, a dandy, and among the most hapless kings in Jaipur’s history. The British exploited his regency and gained increasing influence in the state during his rule. Jai Singh III died under highly suspicious circumstances, possibly having been poisoned by a member of his court.62 The decision to exclude Jai Singh III from the dynastic necropolis indicates his son and successor, Ram Singh’s desire to disassociate himself and his dynasty from this unsuccessful king. Kachhwaha mahārājās such as Ishwari Singh and Man Singh II sought to legitimize their contested rules by advertising their descent from illustrious predecessors through meaningful chatrī programs. In contrast, due to the scandals and degeneracy that characterized the reign of Jai Singh III, Ram Singh took pains expressly not to refer to him, in an attempt to erase them from Jaipur’s history. Jai Singh III was an embarrassment to his dynasty, and it served no one’s political agenda to advertise descent from him or to bother defaming his memories—he had already blackened his reputation. The omission of his chatrī effectively serves to extirpate his rule. This is a pattern repeated in other Rajput necropolises to conveniently silence history.

Anonymous Memorialization: The Chatrīs of the Kachhwaha Queens

Despite their restricted access to public political arenas and their near total sequestration, Rajput women have at times commanded great wealth, enjoyed their class privilege, been prolific artistic patrons, and even wielded significant, albeit covert, political power from within the zenānā.63 In light of her social position, wealth, and the prestige that her marriage conferred upon her marital house, it is not surprising that a Rajput rāṇī (queen) should often be commemorated through a chatrī (Fig. 1.28). Like those commemorating kings, Rajput queens’ chatrīs are commissioned by their sons or, less often, husbands. In Jaipur, the cenotaphs of the Kachhwaha mahārāṇīs are located in a zenānā chatrī bagh. As in other Rajput chatrī baghs, the form, scale, and building materials of the queens’ chatrīs do 62 63

Aman Nath, Jaipur: The Last Destination (Bombay: India Book House, 1994), 96–97. See Molly Emma Aitken’s gendered readings of Rajput women’s engagement with painting as subjects, viewers, and patrons: “Pardah and Portrayal: Rajput Women as Subjects, Patrons and Collectors,” Artibus Asiae 62, no. 2 (2002): 247–80; “Spectatorship and Femininity in Kangra-Style Painting,” in Vidya Dehejia, Representing the Body: Gender Issues in Indian Art (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1997), 82–102.

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figure 1.28

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Chatrī of Madho Singh II’s Mahārāṇī, commissioned by Madho Singh II, in the zenānā chatrī bagh in Jaipur

not differ from those of the kings’, although their decorative programs are less elaborate and are apolitical in thematic content, consisting of reliefs of scrolling vegetal work, female musicians, and animals not engaged in fighting or being hunted. As Rajput women have traditionally been overtly excluded from political and martial spheres, the queens’ chatrīs are appropriately devoid of images of alcohol bottles, hunting, sport, and other signifiers of Rajput kingship that are masculine prerogatives. Molly Emma Aitken’s insightful reading of the anonymous female subject in Rajput painting offers a paradigm for interpreting the memorialized female in Rajput funerary architecture. Both artistic traditions are characterized by what Aitken refers to as “a politics of male visibility and female invisibility.”64 For Rajput men of rank, portraits served as political gifts, tools of diplomacy, and means of visually establishing dynastic continuity from father to son. Males’ portraits were frequently inscribed to ensure the subject’s identification. Depictions of women in Rajput painting historically conform to templates that were established at each court; they are largely unrecognizable as individuals. 64

“Pardah and Portrayal,” 248.

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Unlike the portraits of males, those of Rajput women seldom include the subject’s name. This lack of individuality of the female subject in Rajput portraiture reflects the absence of women from the mardānā (male-dominated public) sphere at court. Their presence being limited to the zenānā, women were not visible to men, beyond the immediate members of their family—including court painters. That portraits, like chatrīs, assisted in visually documenting lineage, is one less reason for a tradition of Rajput female portraiture. While Rajput kingdoms were made stronger and gained prestige through the acquisition of daughtersin-laws from high-ranking dynasties, political legitimacy hinged exclusively on the ruler’s paternal ancestry. As Aitken notes, “[Rajput] history, structured on genealogy, was male.”65 The absence of the individualized female in Rajput painting parallels and perhaps informs the community’s female memorial traditions. As with their portraits, the majority of the males’ chatrīs are carefully labeled to preserve their identities after death, as well as those of their sons as patrons of the chatrīs and rightful heirs of the persons commemorated. By contrast, throughout the former Rajput states the majority of queens’ chatrīs are unmarked. The few that do offer inscriptions do not refer to the commemorated queen by name; they simply note her natal home. This is the established manner in which to refer to royal Rajput women in the courtly context and the manner in which they are identified in official records. This nomenclature reflects both the respect granted to royal Rajput women (it is considered too familiar and thus disrespectful to refer to them by their personal names) and the prestige and political alliances their marriages represented between their natal and marital homes. This “politics of invisibility” that characterizes the arts associated with Raj­ put women is also informed by dharm. The gendered dharm of a Rajput woman is to maintain her lāj or ‘izzat (modesty), which is achieved by keeping paradh (staying within the zenānā, or veiled while outside the home). Thus it would appear that in commissioning less-than-personalized chatrīs for their mothers, royal chatrī patrons were actually honoring them. Prior to the early-nineteenth century, when the British East India Company required its allies to ban the practice, satī (a woman’s self-immolation on her husband’s funeral pyre) was another component of a Rajput woman’s dharm. As will be examined in the Bikaner and Mewar sections of this book (chapters 4 and 5, respectively), women who fulfilled this aspect of their dharm did not receive their own chatrī; they were memorialized and at times, worshipped as 65

Ibid., 274.

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goddesses at their husbands’ chatrīs. As in other Rajput royal houses, Kachhwaha queens, concubines, and female servants became satīs.66 In the chatrīs in Bikaner and Mewar, satīs are, like the memorialized kings, depicted figuratively, albeit as types, not as individuals. As the Kachhwaha kings of Amber and Jaipur are not memorialized through portraits in their chatrīs, images of their satīs are similarly absent. While the queens remain anonymous at the site of their lavish cenotaphs in Jaipur, a sizeable corpus of files informs us of several of their chatrīs’ construction costs, the names of the architects, and their patrons’ engagement in their commissions. For example, PWD records note that Mahārājā Madho Singh II worked closely with the architects who designed the chatrī of his late senior wife. He approved all the plans and even enlisted the services of Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob, who designed Ram Singh’s chatrī.67 The strict hierarchy of the zenānā was maintained in death, and several files record the king’s desire to ensure that the chatrī of one queen not exceed that of an earlier one of equal status, in terms of cost, size, or decoration.68 As with the chatrīs of the Kachhwaha mahārājās, the current king performed the pūjā pratiṣṭā for the women’s chatrīs.69 Although descent from a queen did not legitimize a king’s rule, performance of the chatrī’s pūjā pratiṣṭā is a kingly prerogative. Accordingly, the performance of a queen’s chatrī inauguration may be regarded as a public, performative legitimizing act. As with the construction of the structures, the darbār was careful to keep the costs and activities of the mahārāṇīs’ pūjā pratiṣṭās equal to one another, and it was considered highly inappropriate if they exceeded the cost of a recent pūjā pratiṣṭā for a mahārājā’s chatrī.70

66

67 68 69 70

The Kachhwaha Vanshavali (the dynasty’s genealogical record) indicates that Rājā Man Singh was joined at his pyre by several satīs, all of whom are listed by their natal homes (Kumkum Chatterjee, “The Cultural Investments of Empire: Raja Man Singh in Bengal,” paper delivered at the Association of Asian Studies conference, 2011). PWD, Political 1, no. 0211 (1909), “Construction of the Cenotaph of Her Late Highness Maharani Sahiba Jadanji,” Rajasthan State Archives, Jaipur. PWD, Minor Head 1, no. 1653 (1933). “Her Late Highness Maji Sahiba Sri Jhalji: Construction of Cenotaph of,” 1, Rajasthan State Archives, Jaipur. Ibid., 56–58. Ibid., 69.

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Conclusion

The Kachhwaha chatrīs examined in this chapter provide an overview of the myriad political and ritual functions these memorials may possess. They may be lieux de mémoire that enable later generations to yoke their own rules to the communal memory of an honored ancestor and a golden age. As in the case of Mahārājā Madho Singh II, a chatrī may refer less to a distant dynastic past, and more to a specific time in the immediate past—a moment of personal triumph. Chatrīs may be sites where sibling rivalries are played out and histories rewritten and, paradoxically, where worship of the deceased defames his memory. In the case of Rajput queens, a chatrī may at once, and appropriately, reveal and conceal the identity of the person memorialized. In all cases, the chatrī serves the living patron as much as the figure in whose memory it was raised. As Kertzer argues, threats to political power tend to result in an increased display of symbols of power. In particular, Ishwari Singh’s and Man Singh II’s chatrī commissions appear to belie their tenuous grasp on their authority. As will be examined in the next chapter, when the Narukas, a branch of the Kachhwaha house, revolted in the eighteenth century and claimed sovereign political autonomy, they memorialized their ancestors through chatrīs that were larger and even more symbolically charged than those of their parent house. If chatrī patronage was an established performance of the transference of political authority, to fail to adopt the tradition of constructing chatrīs would effectively discredit the new dynasty. Chapter 2 also examines how the chatrī may function as a legitimizer of nonroyal authority, signifying to members of non-Rajput communities that the commemorated one and his successors were the legitimate heirs to religious or economic power.

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Keeping Up with the Kachhwahas: The Chatrīs of the Narukas of Alwar, the Dadu Panthis, and the Shekhawati Merchants Located behind the City Palace in Alwar, in northeastern Rajasthan, is one of the largest of all the Rajput chatrīs (Fig. 2.1). The red-sandstone and whitemarble cenotaph memorializes Mahārājā Bakhtawar Singh Naruka, who ruled Alwar from 1791 to1815. The chatrī’s interior offers an intricately carved frieze program whose thematic content—scenes of battle, elephant fights, and sātmarī—references aspects of ideal Rajput kingship. If, as we saw in the previous chapter, a chatrī’s increased scale and decorative program indicates a new king’s legitimacy anxieties, then clearly Bakhtawar Singh’s chatrī is an indicator that all was not well in Alwar state at the time of its construction. In fact, political unrest had been a near constant feature of Alwar’s princely history since its foundation in the late-eighteenth century. As demonstrated throughout the Rajput chatrī baghs, anxious Rajput kings make for innovative and ambitious chatrī patrons, and indeed Alwar’s tumultuous political situation accounts, in part, for the Naruka kings commissioning several large-scale chatrīs with politically meaningful decorative programs. The Narukas are a branch of the Kachhwaha dynasty of Amber and Jaipur. In 1774, Rao Rājā Pratap Singh (r. 1774–91) declared independence from Jaipur and established the autonomous state of Alwar. His successor, Bakhtawar Singh, was among the many Alwar rulers to adopt a son, in his case Vinay Singh, whose appointment divided the court. Unsurprisingly, construction on Bakhtawar Singh’s monumental chatrī commenced almost immediately after Mahārājā Vinay Singh (r. 1815–57) came to power. In light of the Narukas relatively recent establishment of their own sovereign state, Bakhtawar Singh’s alliance with the British, his contentious adoption of Vinay Singh, and the fact that Vinay Singh was a minor at the time of his father’s death, the new mahārājā would have felt particularly compelled to visually announce his right to occupy his throne. Once again, political turmoil and a new Rajput king’s legitimacy anxieties combined to memorialize the previous king with an extraordinary chatrī. This chapter analyzes the chatrī traditions of three communities associated with the Kachhwahas: in the case of the Naruka and Shekhawat Rajputs the association is political; in the case of the Dadu Panthis, religious; and in the

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004300569_004

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figure 2.1 Chatrī of Rao Rājā Bhaktawar Singh Naruka, commissioned by Maharao Rājā Vinay Singh, early-nineteenth century, Alwar

case of the Baniyas, the hereditary merchants of Shekhawati, geographical. Each of these groups appropriated from the Kachhwahas the practice of commemorating their ancestors through chatrīs, and each then adapted the memorials’ forms and decoration. The chapter begins with an analysis of the Naruka chatrīs in Rajgarh and Alwar, paying special attention to the structures’ religio-politically informed murals and friezes. The sacred and profane thematic content of the Naruka chatrīs’ decorative programs stridently announces the Narukas’ right to rule their new autonomous state, by evoking the alliances they forged with the Dadu Panth Hindu religious order and the most recent incumbents on the north Indian political stage, the British. The Naruka chatrīs also reference the dynasty’s descent from its parent house, through the appropriation of forms and plans from the Kachhwaha chatrīs at Jaipur. Thus for the Narukas, like their Kachhwaha relatives, Man Singh’s chatrī was a potent lieu de memoire. However, perhaps as a way to visually justify their independence, the Naruka chatrīs often surpass in ambition those of the Kachhwaha mahārājās. The Dadu Panthis also commemorate their leaders with chatrīs, and they will be examined as legitimizers of religious authority. The chapter concludes with a look at how members of this mercantile community in

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Shekhawati appropriated the chatrī from the Rajputs and then crafted decorative programs that were specific to their community.

The Chatrīs of the Narukas of Alwar

Alwar was a relative latecomer to the Rajput royal stage. The seeds of a new, independent Alwar state were sown in 1765 when Mahārājā Sawai Madho Singh I of Jaipur expelled from his court one of the highest ranking Kachhwaha nobles, Pratap Singh, ṭhākur of Macheri, for his alleged involvement in court intrigues. Pratap Singh belonged to the Naruka subclan, whose members were hereditary tazīmī sardārs in the Jaipur darbār. The Narukas trace their ancestry to the fifteenth-century prince Bar Singh, the second son of Udaikaran, one of the Amber Kachhwaha’s most successful kings. Bar Singh was given lands to the southwest of Jaipur, and his grandson, Naru, founded the Naruka subclan of the Kachhwaha Rajputs. Until the mid-eighteenth century, the Narukas remained loyal to their liege lords, the Kachhwahas, and their land was considered a jagīr (granted domain) of the Amber and, later, Jaipur states. The Kachhwahas rewarded the Narukas’ loyalty with the prestigious right to lead the Kachhwaha troops into battle. After his expulsion from the Jaipur darbār, Pratap Singh sought refuge in the neighboring kingdom of Bharatpur, from where he administered his estate. In 1767 he was called back to Jaipur to assist the Kachhwahas in war against Bharatpur. The military success he secured for Jaipur guaranteed his reinstatement at court, and he was also rewarded by being appointed regent of Jaipur state for Sawai Madho Singh I’s son, Prithvi Singh, when the former died in 1768.1 Pratap Singh Naruka may be understood to have definitively achieved independence from Jaipur and established his own state in 1774 when, as a reward for his assistance to the imperial forces against the Jats, the emperor Shah Alam II granted him sole custody of the Naruka ṭhikānā at Macheri. This he was to rule directly under the Mughals, thus establishing it as no longer under Kachhwaha jurisdiction. The emperor also bestowed upon him the Māhī-oMāritib (a ceremonial standard with the insignia of a fish that royal houses displayed in official situations to visually communicate the imperial favor they enjoyed) and conferred the title of rao rājā (king) upon him, signaling his new status as an independent sovereign.2 Again, although largely militarily inept by this point, the Mughal emperors still wielded immense, albeit primarily sym1 Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 724–29. 2 Ibid., 727.

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bolic, political power, and the authority to make kings and carve out new kingdoms was theirs alone. Not satisfied with being recognized simply as a sovereign ruler, Pratap Singh independently grafted the honorific prefix of sawai to his name in imitation of (or perhaps in opposition to) Jaipur, whose rulers had held the sole prerogative of using that title, which Aurangzeb had granted to Mahārājā Jai Singh. In adopting the title, Pratap Singh of course also referred to his shared bloodline with this illustrious founder of Jaipur. Initially, Pratap Singh ruled from the ancestral seat at Rajgard. In 1775 he established his capital at Alwar, from which the new state took its name. As the king of a recently established independent state, Rao Rājā Sawai Pratap Singh Naruka would certainly have been vested in participating in established legitimizing practices associated with Rajput kingship as a way to communicate that his rule and kingdom were equal to those of the Jaipur mahārājās. The royal Narukas exploited artistic patronage to express their legitimacy to the state’s nobles, whose loyalties would surely have been in question. A very real danger persisted that the Naruka nobles might support Jaipur during the frequent Kachhwaha-Naruka skirmishes that ensued after the formation of Alwar state. Under Pratap Singh, royal Naruka artistic patronage was dominated by commissions with a legitimizing focus, largely comprising murals in the pubic mardānā sections of the Rajgarh Fort and in his father’s chatrī. By the second and third generations of Naruka kings, the state had become more securely established, mainly due to the protection the Narukas enjoyed under their new liege lords, the British. The Alwar-British alliance initially guaranteed the Narukas a more secure rule, and this found expression in their artistic commissions. In contrast to Pratap Singh’s public and politically informed art, under the mahārao (king) Bakhtawar Singh (r. 1791–1815) and his successor Mahārājā Vinay Singh, the royal arts of Alwar largely shifted to a more private function and were dominated by paintings, manuscripts, and decorative weapons.3 Pratap Singh clearly learned valuable lessons regarding the relationship between kingship and artistic patronage from his royal Kachhwaha relatives while at the Jaipur court, first as a tazīmī sardār and then as regent. After all, the Jaipur court at which Pratap Singh served was that of Sawai Madho Singh I, whose half brother, Ishwari Singh, had boldly proclaimed his right to the Jaipur throne through the formal and decorative programs of his father Sawai Jai Singh II’s chatrī. In turn, Madho Singh similarly justified his own political position by defaming his half brother’s memory through the construction of a humble chatrī for him. 3 Haynes, “Patronage for the Arts,” 274.

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figure 2.2 Chatrī of Ṭhākur Mohabat Singh Naruka of Macheri, Rajgarh ( formerly Alwar), commissioned by Pratap Singh, late-eighteenth century

Possibly taking his cue from his Kachhwaha ancestors and immediate relatives, Pratap Singh erected a grand chatrī for his father, Mohabat Singh, the ṭhākur of Macheri, who had died fighting for the Jaipur army against the Marathas in the battle of Barwara (Fig. 2.2). Mohabat Singh’s chatrī is the earliest documented Naruka memorial.4 In Ṭhākur Mohabat Singh Naruka, Pratap Singh had a father from whom he could proudly claim descent: Mohabat Singh died an honorable, ideal Rajput death on the battlefield, fighting the Marathas, the Rajputs’ historic adversaries. In a scenario that is a reversal of Mahārājā Sawai Madho Singh I’s attempt to posthumously demote his half brother from king to ṭhākur through the construction of a humble chatrī fit for a noble, Pratap Singh Naruka commissioned a chatrī for his father, a ṭhākur, that was fit for a king. In so doing, it would appear that Pratap Singh was attempting to deceptively extend the newly established royal Naruka line further back in time. If this was indeed the case, Pratap Singh is not alone in South Asian history.

4 Much of the information regarding Ṭhākur Mohabat Singh and his chatrī was gained from an interview with Prithvi Singh Naruka, an Alwar-based historian who is descended from Mohabat Singh (August 6, 2006).

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One of the best documented cases of such a practice is the tombs that Sher Shah Suri, the first emperor of the Sur Empire, built for this father and grandfather in the early-sixteenth century. Sher Shah’s ancestors had been cattle traders and aristocrats of relatively low rank. Catherine Asher argues that in commissioning lavish tombs based on contemporaneous royal models, Sher Shah visually crafted a fictitious royal lineage for his new empire.5 Mohabat Singh’s chatrī offers a slightly amended version of the Kachhwaha chatrīs at Gaitor in Jaipur. While retaining the cruciform plan and pāñchratanā dome cluster, the addition of foliated arches, curved bangaldar eaves over each of the directional entrances, and baluster columns brings the structure in line with contemporaneous royal Mughal and Rajput architecture.6 The Kachhwaha chatrīs at Gaitor offer a simple undecorated marble slab directly under the main dome. Beginning with Mohabat Singh’s memorial, the Naruka chatrīs exchange this feature for a marble pāliyā with one or more pairs of footprints raised in relief. The second pair of footprints signifies that the deceased male was accompanied to his pyre by one or more satīs. The cenotaph is constructed of stone, which is plastered over with lime in imitation of marble. Unlike the cases of mahārājās Ishwari Singh and Prithvi Singh of Jaipur, here the modest building material is likely the result of Pratap Singh’s inability to obtain marble, the luxury construction material of palaces and chatrīs. The closest and finest source of marble was at Makrana, which was in Jaipur’s territory. Having recently proclaimed independence from the Kachhwaha court, Pratap Singh was likely denied access to the material or, at least, would have been charged heavily for it by the Kachhwaha darbār. The Kachhwahas would certainly have been vested in preventing the rebel king from participating in a legitimizing activity such as constructing a marble chatrī for his father.7 The Kachhwaha darbār’s monopoly on the supply of 5

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Catherine Asher, “Legacy and Legitimacy: Sher Shah’s Patronage of Imperial Mausaleua,” in Shari’at and Ambiguity in South Asian Islam, ed. Katherine P. Ewing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 79–97. The baluster column was particularly in vogue during the period in which Pratap Singh commissioned his father’s chatrī. Ebba Koch discusses how, after Shah Jahan adopted this column type in the early seventeenth century, it went on to become the predominant form of column in north and central Indian architecture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ebba Koch, “The Baluster Column: A European Motif in Mughal Architecture and Its Meaning,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 251–62. Pratap Singh Naruka’s early career was marked by further skirmishes with Jaipur. After the 1778 death of the sixteen-year-old mahārājā of Jaipur, Sawai Prithvi Singh II, Pratap Singh supported the son born to Prithvi posthumously, and went so far as to rally the Marathas

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Makrana marble and the material’s function as a potent index of royal wealth and authority should not be underestimated. After all, the Amber king Mirza Jai Singh supplied all the luminous white Makrana marble to the emperor Shah Jahan for construction of the Taj Mahal.8 The interior walls and ceiling of Mohabat Singh’s chatrī are covered in frescoes. These have been so badly damaged by oxidization that much of their content is obscured. Discernible sections of the paintings offer stylistic similarities with contemporaneous mural paintings from Jaipur and were probably the work of Pratap Singh’s master painters, whom he brought with him from the Jaipur court. Painters from the royal Jaipur atelier are known to have executed the rao rājā’s other mural commissions at Rajgarh Fort.9 The French ­traveler Louis Rousselet, who viewed the murals at Rajgarh in 1866, offers a brief description of them in his travelogue. The thematic content of the mural programs at both Rajgarh and Mohabat Singh’s chatrī combine sacred mythological and politically themed subjects to legitimize the Narukas’ claim of auto­­nomous rulership.10 Claiming descent from the Kachhwahas, the Narukas are similarly Krishnaivite Suryavanshis, and it is therefore fitting that the decorative program of this and later Naruka chatrīs are dominated thematically by scenes from Vaishnavite myths: Krishna stealing the bathing gopīs’ (cow herders) clothes; Krishna enthroned and attended by gopīs; and a central floral medallion on the ceiling, encircled by dancing gopīs in a rās līlā sequence (Krishna’s circular dance with the milkmaids of Vrindavan). Scenes from the Ramayana adorn the lower section of Mohabat Singh’s chatrī. These appear to have been included as an allusion to Pratap Singh’s

8

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to attack Jaipur and place the rival claimant on the throne by force. The coup was unsuccessful and Prithvi Singh’s younger brother, Mahārājā Sawai Pratap Singh succeeded him to the throne (Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 727). In light of these events, it is improbable that Jaipur, ruled by the slighted mahārājā Sawai Pratap Singh, would have granted Pratap Singh Naruka access to this building material of kings, which he could exploit to legitimize his position as an independent ruler. Wayne E. Begley and Z.A. Desai, Taj Mahal, the Illumined Tomb: An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Mughal and European Documentary Sources (Cambridge, MA: The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, 1989), 163–73. The careers of some of these painters from Jaipur (Daluram, Dalchand, and Shivkumar) are discussed in Jeysingh Gupta, “Alwar ki bitti-chita,” The Researcher (1972): 12–13, 39–42, and Mohanlal Gupta, Alwar Sangrahalay ke Chitra (Alwar: Sarvodaya Press, 1969), 21–34. Louis Rousselet, India and Its Native Princes: Travels in Central India and the Presidencies of Bombay and Bengal, rev. and ed. Lt. Col. Buckle (London: Chapman and Hall, 1876), 250–51.

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figure 2.3 Mural section in the interior of Mohabat Singh’s chatrī depicting a procession of Rajput soldiers carrying the Alwar state flag and members of Hanuman’s monkey army. The next sequential panel (Fig. 36) depicts Maratha troops marching to face them in battle.

claims to political legitimacy. The epic’s hero, the rightful King Rama, exemplar of dharmik behavior, has served as a paradigm for Hindu kings for centuries.11 The siege of Lanka, which details King Rama and his monkey general, Hanuman, in their charge on the fortress of the enemy, King Ravana, is at the center of the epic (Fig. 2.3). In Mohabat Singh’s chatrī, Rajput mounted cavalry, led by Hanuman and accompanying his ranks of monkey troops, march under the Alwar pāñchrāngā state flag toward Lanka. Behind Ravana are the Kachhwahas’ old enemies: ranks of mounted Maratha troops, which the painters have made identifiable by carefully rendering their distinctive upturned red hats and battle standards (Fig. 2.4). By depicting the Naruka troops as members of Hanuman’s army and locating Maratha troops behind the villain, Ravana, the battle sequence associates the patron with Rama, the archetypical Hindu king, and the opposition with the epic’s villain.

11

Sheldon Pollock, “Ramayana and Political Imagination in India,” Journal of Asian Studies 52, no. 2 (May 1993): 261–97.

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figure 2.4 Maratha troops marching into battle toward Alwar troops, fresco section on the interior of the dome of Mohabat Singh’s chatrī

As noted in chapter 1, the Marathas had been adversaries of Jaipur state since Mahārājā Sawai Madho Singh I recruited them to support his claim to the throne, after which time they refused to vacate, demanding heavy tribute for their military service. Closer to home, Mohabat Singh Naruka, the figure this chatrī commemorates, died fighting the Marathas, and Pratap Singh himself had fought against them in 1759. Although he briefly joined forces with the Marathas, who were allied with the Mughals against the Jats in the late 1760s, the battles the Kachhwahas and Narukas fought against the Marathas far outnumbered those in which they fought alongside them. It is therefore likely that Pratap Singh’s true feelings regarding the Marathas find visual expression in the mural program for his father’s chatrī.12 Directly opposite the chatrī’s main entrance is a mural section depicting a rāj tīlak ceremony (Fig. 2.5). This ritual is the definitive moment a new king is installed into his office as a noble or priest anoints his forehead with vermilion. Significantly, the mural is also located where the Siege of Lanka sequence termi­nates if one follows the battle in a clockwise direction, the direction narra­tives unfold in Hindu temples. The climax of the Ramayana is Rama’s 12

Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 724–29.

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figure 2.5 Mural section in Mohabat Singh’s chatī depicting a rāj tilak ceremony

installation as king of Ayodhya. In Mohabat Singh’s chatrī, the crowned king sits on a canopied dais, flanked by three crowned male attendants who are richly dressed. A priest, identifiable through the loincloth he wears, holds his hand above the king’s forehead, poised to anoint him. A gathering of nobles assemble before the new king. As in the Seige of Lanka section, all the figures wear contemporaneous royal north Indian attire: here long jāmmās (robes) belted with a patka sash, and turbans. Pratap Singh may have intended the rāj tīlak mural section in his father’s chatrī to have a polyvalent meaning. The first and most obvious interpretation is that it depicts Rama’s installation, which was attended by his three brothers. However, the figures’ royal Rajput dress locates them in the Narukas’ present. The rāj tīlak mural section may thus be an attempt to conflate Mohabat Singh with Rama, the ideal and rightful dharmik king. The mural may also have been Pratap Singh’s attempt to rewrite history to legitimize his own rule. Mohabat Singh was not a king, but a ṭhākur, and as such he would never have received the rāj tīlak. As Alwar’s first king, Pratap Singh was the first Naruka king to undergo the ceremony. Pratap Singh may thus have intended the mural to posthumously elevate his father from an aristocrat to a king. As with Sher Shah Suri’s commission of his father’s and grandfather’s tombs, Mohabat Singh’s chatrī appears to have served as a canvas for

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figure 2.6 Mural from the ambulatory of Mohabat Singh’s chatrī. The bottom register offers scenes of yogis, probably of the Dadu Panth sect.

his son to advertise his right to rule the new independent state. If Mohabat Singh had indeed been a king, as his eldest son, Pratap Singh’s rule would not have been in question. But, had that been the case, Pratap Singh would probably not have commissioned such a large and richly decorated memorial for his father. Significantly, Rousselet describes a similar mural in the Rajgarh Fort that he identifies as a rāj tīlak ceremony. In it, Krishna himself presides, thereby communicating that the Kachhwaha iṣṭdevā (patron deity) supported the installment of an unidentified Naruka king. Images of sādhus (ascetics) feature prominently in the murals on the chatrī’s outer ambulatory (Fig. 2.6). The nudity and distinctive peaked red hats marks these as sādhus as members of the Dadu Panth religious order, which was founded in Amber in the late-sixteenth century. The main seat of the order is in Naraina, near Jaipur, and the mahant (spiritual head) has traditionally been the rāj mahant or rāj guru (spiritual advisor) to the ruler of Jaipur state. When he became the rao rājā of independent Alwar, Pratap Singh granted the Dadu Panth a ṭhikānā in Rajgarh, to establish a branch of the order in his state, and made the rāj mahant there his spiritual advisor, no doubt in part because the Kachhwaha kings received both political and spiritual counsel and martial

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support from the order and association with them conferred legitimacy.13 The Dadu Panthis were extremely useful. Literally meaning “naked,” the nāgā sect was a martial branch of Dadu Panth formally instated in the Kachhwaha and Naruka state armies and renowned for skill on the battlefield.14 While other members of Dadu Panth wear the traditional saffron robes associated with renunciation in Hinduism, members of the nāgā sect are distinguished by their red turbans or peaked caps and by wearing only a white loincloth.15 These are the very figures that appear in Mohabat Singh’s chatrī, and their presence communicates that Pratap Singh was associated with the order and received its spiritual and military support.16 As examined below, the relationship between the Kachhwaha and Naruka kings and the Dadu Panthis was reciprocal, and each was dependent upon the other for legitimation in their respective spheres. Just as kings from these two Rajput dynasties viewed their association with the order as politically legitimizing, the reverse was similarly true: the religious positions of the highest-ranking Dadu Panthis were legitimized by the Jaipur and Alwar kings. Each group visually announced its support from the other through the decorative programs in its chatrīs. Pratap Singh was succeeded as the king of Alwar by Sawai Bakhtawar Singh, whom he adopted from the ṭhikānā of Thana. As the adopted successor of the first king and founder of a new state, it is unclear why Bakhtawar Singh would opt to break with established Rajput tradition and not build an elaborate, lavishly decorated chatrī for his adopted father that would definitively announce his (Bakhtawar’s) legitimate occupation of the Alwar throne (Fig. 2.7). Instead, Pratap Singh’s modestly sized, single-domed, plastered-stone memorial, located on the grounds of Bala Qila, is devoid of political references, as if commissioned by a royal patron who was secure in his position of authority. The 13

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I am grateful to Mahant Kailash Das, the current rāj guru of Jaipur, for his explanation of the traditional roles of the Dadu Panth mahants in Jaipur and Alwar states and the history of the order (interview, August 19, 2006). W.G. Orr, A Sixteenth-Century Indian Mystic (London: Lutterworth Press, 1947), 203. Many organized groups of Hindu ascetics have naked martial members in their ranks, all referred to by the generic term nāgā. For a discussion of naked Hindu warrior-ascetics and the practice of warrior-ascetics in South Asia in general, see David L. Lorenzen, “Warrior Ascetics in Indian History,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 98, no.1 (1978): 61–75. Orr, A Sixteenth-Century Indian Mystic, 199–208. The British learned from their royal Rajput allies, and during the colonial period they enlisted the Dadu Panth nāgās as mercenaries in their own army (Lorenzen, “Warrior Ascetics,” 70). Orr discusses the nāgās’ pivotal role in subduing the mutineers in Jaipur during the 1857 mutiny (A Sixteenth-Century Indian Mystic, 205).

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figure 2.7 Chatrī of Pratap Singh Nuraka, Alwar, commissioned by Bhaktawar Singh, late-eighteenth century. Stone and paint.

chatrī’s surprisingly humble form, decorative program, and scale can only be attributed to the fact that Bakhtawar Singh’s other building programs, such as the new royal residence, the Alwar City Palace, which he began in 1793, vied for his and his artists’ attentions. The early years of Bakhtawar Singh’s reign were also marked by turbulent events, and it is believed he became deranged in the later ones.17 In 1803, Bakhtawar Singh entered into a treaty with the British East India Company, which guaranteed each party mutual military support. In so doing, the Naruka king became the first Rajput ruler to ally with the British. Soon after, the East India Company called upon the Naruka forces to assist in fighting the Marathas, and the joint forces defeated their mutual enemy at the battle of Laswarda in the same year. After Alwar, other Rajput courts soon made al­ liances with the British, largely for protection against the Marathas. The early part of the nineteenth century saw the British becoming increasingly em17

From the 1790s to the early years of the nineteenth century, the Narukas were involved in further skirmishes with the Jaipur Kachhwahas and the Marathas, against whom they suffered crippling defeats and lost many of their land holdings (Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 728).

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broiled in Rajput court politics, and the power they conferred on certain Rajput states evinced a subtle shift in Rajput legitimizing practices. From this period on, the Rajputs began to reference their association with the British, the new rising political and military power in north India, in legitimizing arenas such as their chatrīs. Significantly, in the treaty Bakhtawar Singh entered into with the British, General Lord Lake, Commander-in-Chief of the military in British India, refers to him as “Mahārājā,”18 suggesting that the British granted him this title, whereas previously bestowing titles upon north Indian rulers was the sole prerogative of the Mughal emperor. With the title of mahārājā, the Naruka king became equal, in this regard, to the Kachhwaha ruler of Jaipur, Alwar’s parent state.19 As Bakhtawar Singh, like his own father, was unable to produce an heir, he expressed desire to adopt Vinay Singh, the son of his brother, the ṭhākur of Thana. However, Bakhtawar Singh died before he could officially declare his successor, and a rival faction at court placed Bakhtawar Singh’s illegitimate son on the throne. It was only through the East India Company’s intervention that Vinay Singh (1815–57) was eventually installed as the official mahārājā of Alwar, after several years of intrigue had divided the Naruka court.20 In light of the circumstances surrounding his accession, as well as his prolific patronage of the arts in various media, it is not surprising that Vinay Singh was also the patron of one of the largest and most lavish Rajput chatrīs ever constructed (see Fig. 2.1). Undoubtedly in part to silence the rival faction at the Alwar darbār that supported Bakhtawar Singh’s illegitimate son and his rival claim to the throne, Vinay Singh began construction of the chatrī in 1815, the very year he came to office. As the new ruler was still a minor when he was named as Bakhtawar Singh’s successor, the state was initially administered by a British-appointed council of regency. Against the backdrop of a court divided in its support of the two princes, wise members of Vinay Singh’s council of regency must have been aware of the legitimizing potential that his adopted father’s chatrī could confer, and they were certainly instrumental in the initial stages of the chatrī’s construction.

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Maya Ram, Rajasthan State Gazetteer: Alwar (Jaipur: Government Central Press, 1968): 65–66. While General Lake refers to Bakhtawar Singh as mahārājā, other contemporary sources continue to refer to him as rao rājā. It appears that Mangal Singh Prabhakar Bahadur (r. 1874–92) is the first Naruka king to be officially awarded the title of mahārājā of Alwar by the British. Ram, Rajasthan State Gazetteer, 65.

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Bakhtawar Singh’s chatrī is situated beside an artificial tank directly behind the City Palace he built. By the third generation of Naruka kings, no dynastic necropolis had been established, and among the Rajput royal houses they are unique in this. The chatrī returns to the form and pāñchratanā dome cluster of Mohabat Singh’s chatrī, with the addition of four smaller decorative chatrīs on each corner of the memorial’s base. This gives the chatrī a total of nine domes, which is referred to as the nauratanā (nine jewels) form. In addition to the four extra domes, Bakhtawar Singh’s chatrī surpasses the earlier Naruka memorials in its size, use of luxury building materials (Makrana marble and Kaurali red sandstone), and extensive mural and relief frieze decoration. In adopting the architectural form patronized by the state’s first ruler, who had employed it for his father’s chatrī, Vinay Singh explicitly referred to his esteemed ancestor and lineage (of course, as both he and his predecessor were adopted, Vinay Singh was not actually directly related to Pratap Singh). And by commissioning a grander memorial for his adopted father, constructed of luxury materials, Vinay Sing lauded his father, legitimized his own rule, and referred to the wealth and artistic forces the Narukas commanded. As at Mohabat Singh’s chatrī, iconic scenes from Hindu, predominantly Vaishnavite, mythology are situated alongside secular scenes of royal processions, celebrations, and a profusion of icons signifying Rajput kingship and authority, among them female dancers, elephant fights, sātmarī, hunting, and wrestling matches (Fig. 2.8). Royal performances, such as that of the female dancers and wrestlers, are observed by an anonymous, stylized male figure who through the iconography of chaurī-bearing attendants, swords, umbrellas, and thrones may confidently be identified as a king.21 However, specifically which king, the commemorated or the chatrī patron, remains (perhaps intentionally) unclear, as at Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh I’s chatrī at Gaitor. Both Bakhtawar Singh and Vinay Singh were prolific patrons of the arts in various media, which is one of the cultural duties of a king.22 British soldiers, identifiable through their costumes and rifles, also feature in the frieze program on Bakhtawar Singh’s chatrī, appearing as a line of infantry on a panel depicting a festival or military procession. Their presence refers 21

22

Images of wrestlers are popular topoi in Rajput chatrīs, fulfilling the same function as images of fighting elephants: both were icons of princely power and authority. Like a prized tusker, a winning wrestler served as a metaphor for the king’s political might. Several rulers throughout princely India patronized individual wrestlers, and staging and viewing wrestling matches were royal pastimes. Joseph Alter, The Wrestler’s Body: Identity and Ideology in North India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 72–79. Haynes, “Patronage for the Arts,” 272–74.

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figure 2.8 Relief panel from the interior of Bhaktawar Singh’s chatrī. In the upper right register female dancers entertain an enthroned king; in the register below is an elephant fight; in the center is a military precession with British troops carrying muskets at the bottom.

to the protection and legitimacy the Narukas enjoyed through their association with the up-and-coming imperial power. Vinay Singh became one of the first north Indian kings, and perhaps the first, to incorporate images of the British in his courtly arts, adding them to his repertoire of icons of power and authority. Later other Rajput and Maratha royal patrons followed suit, including images of British political figures and soldiers in the decorative programs of their palaces and chatrīs. As in the chatrīs of his Naruka predecessors, a marble pāliyā featuring two pairs of footprints in relief is located beneath the central dome (Fig. 2.9). Here new icons, which do not feature in the earlier Naruka chatrīs, encircle the sets of footprints. These are traditional Rajput weapons: a shield, a musket, a sword, and a kaṭāri (a push-dagger with a horizontal H-shaped hand grip). These icons were probably included on the pāliyā to refer to a popular legitimizing myth, well known throughout Alwar, about Bakhtawar Singh’s adoption. When Sawai Pratap Singh was faced with adopting a successor, he set a test for the young contenders from the different Naruka ṭhikānās. After calling them to court, the rao rājā offered toys and instructed them to choose the ones they liked. Of all

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figure 2.9 Pāliyā in Bhaktawar Singh’s chatrī. Photograph courtesy of Matthew Dicken.

the boys, Bakhtawar Singh was the only one to forgo the toys and choose actual weapons, thereby signaling his innate martial character—an essential trait for a Rajput king.23 The presence of these icons on the pāliyā has a double legitimizing function: they signify Bakhtawar Singh’s martial character and preordained assumption of the Naruka throne (and elide the issue of his later insanity). By extension, they signify Vinay Singh’s legitimacy because—just as Mahārājā Sawai Man Singh II of Jaipur would suggest through the memorial he commissioned for his adopted father, Sawai Madho Singh II, nearly a half century later—a great ruler does not make mistakes and should not be challenged in his choice of successor. The presence of these martial icons on Bakhtawar Singh’s pāliyā may also reference Vinay Singh’s active patronage of various types of traditional weapons manufacture.24 While weapons such as those featured on the pāliyā and produced in Vinay Singh’s workshops had in fact long been replaced on the 23 24

Ram, Rajasthan State Gazetteer, 63. Haynes, “Patronage for the Arts,” 274.

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battlefield by modern firearms, their presence here functions as a metonym for the perfect Rajput king who both nurtured the arts in various media and defended his state through the use of such weapons on the battlefield. These signs on Bakhtawar’s pāliyā may have also conveyed an additional layer of signification to their original audience. Since by the early nineteenth century such traditional Rajput weapons had become superfluous, Vinay Singh’s avid commissions of them may be understood to reflect a nostalgic longing for the Rajputs’, and specifically the Narukas’, martial past. The Narukas established their independent state largely by force of arms. They enjoyed real autonomy only for a brief period: between the end of Mughal rule and the early-nineteenth century, when the British East India Company became an increasingly military and political presence in north India. The weapons Vinay Singh commissioned were essentially works of art rather than instruments of death, and their presence on the pāliyā should therefore be read as a lieu de mémoire referring to this bygone, glorious era in the Narukas’ past. In addition to commissioning a grand chatrī for his adopted father that communicated a legitimizing message to his own court and subjects, Vinay Singh patronized the construction of a chatrī for his older brother, Hanwant Singh (d. 1843), the ṭhākur of Thana (Fig. 2.10).25 This chatrī offers the same architectural plan and form as Bakhtawar Singh’s, although on a more modest scale and constructed of stone and plaster. The chatrī’s frescoes offer similarly themed subjects as Vinay Singh’s earlier memorial commission and again appear to be largely informed by their patron’s desire to legitimize his own rule. While much of the frescoes’ content has been damaged by age and oxidization, ranks of British soldiers remain discernible (Fig. 2.11), as do several portraits of Vinay Singh, whose identity is evidenced through inscriptions and the iconographic convention of encircling him, alone, with a halo (Fig. 2.12). Vinay Singh appears throughout the mural program, enthroned in his darbār or riding out of the Alwar City Palace, which is recognizable through the presence of Bakhtawar Singh’s chatrī. Although he patronized the construction of his brother’s chatrī for practical reasons (Hanwant Singh died without an heir and the ṭhikānā lacked sufficient funds for the project),26 it is clear that Vinay Singh seized the opportunity to further advertise his royal commissions and associations with the British in his home ṭhikānā. 25

26

Although there is no inscription on the chatrī naming Vinay Singh as the patron, it has been recorded in the royal Naruka bahi files (genealogical records). See Kaviraj Ṭhakūr Shimbu Singh, Narukaon kā Itihās, 99–100, and (no author) Rājgaḍ Tehsīl (Rajgarh: Durbahash Nirdehsika, 2006), 65. Prithvi Singh Naruka, Vidhī ka Vīdhān Vichitrā, unpublished manuscript, 1.

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figure 2.10

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Chatrī of Hanwant Singh, the Ṭhākur of Thana (Alwar), commissioned by Vinay Singh

Mahārājā Sheodin Singh (r. 1857–74) was Vinay Singh’s successor and natural, eldest son, who acceded to the Alwar throne uncontested. Mirroring patro­nage and mortuary patterns displayed by secure rulers throughout Rajasthan, the chatrī he commissioned for his father is a modest structure of inexpensive building materials, which seemingly conveys no political agenda (Fig. 2.13). As observed in the case of Jaipur, commissioning a lavish memorial for his father would have been superfluous. Moreover, in Sheodin Singh’s case, it may actually have been impossible. After the transformation of the mercantile East India Company into the imperialistic Raj in 1857, the year of Vinay Singh’s death, the British became increasingly embroiled in the administrative and financial management of the Indian princely states. The Raj installed a British resident in each state, whose approval was required for any large-scale building project, including the chatrīs. Sheodin Singh’s early rule was marked by internal skirmishes and power struggles with the British, to which they responded by severely reducing the king’s funds and even revoking his political titles on several occasions. Naturally, in such an environment royal patronage of the arts suffered. The British significantly reduced the state budget for arts in all media—probably more so than in any other Rajput court—which Edward S. Haynes isolates as a major

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Figure 2.11 figure 43 Mural section in the interior of Hanwant Singh’s chatrī, depicting a British soldier

figure 2.12

Mural panel in the interior of Hanwant Singh’s chatrī. Vinay Singh, pictured at center, is identifiable through an inscription above his head. Behind him is the Alwar City palace and Bhaktawar Singh’s chatrī, which Vinay Singh also commissioned.

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figure 2.13

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Chatrī of Vinay Singh, Alwar, commissioned by Maharao Rājā Sheodan Singh, second half of the nineteenth century. Stone and paint

factor in the decline of the quality and quantity of artistic productions in Alwar at this time. Sheodin Singh’s troupe of court performers, painters, and other artists was reduced to only a fraction of size of his father’s, and the royal Alwar ateliers were never revived.27 Three diminutive chatrīs without dedicatory inscriptions stand in an inconspicuous walled garden behind the Alwar City Palace, tucked discreetly away from Bakhtawar Singh’s lofty memorial. Marking the locations where the last rites of three generations of Naruka kings—Vinay Singh, Sheodin Singh, and 27

Haynes, “Patronage for the Arts,” 279.

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Mangal Singh (r. 1874–92)—were conducted, these memorials adequately reflect the decline in court ceremony, visual legitimizing programs, and artistic patronage that occurred in Alwar state under Raj administration. This decline in prestige and the arts is perhaps best exemplified by Vinay Singh’s own chatrī. The simple hexagonally planned structure is built of local stone, though painted red and white in an attempt to associate it with Bakhtawar Singh’s chatrī, Alwar’s “golden age,” Naruka artistic patronage, and the imperial favor the dynasty once enjoyed. As in Bakhtawar Singh’s chatrī, the pāliyā in Vinay Singh’s offers a raised relief of footprints, but this time only a single pair, as by the time of his cremation the British had long since banned the practice of satī. Vinay Singh’s pāliyā also shares with Bakhtawar Singh’s the icons of weapons surrounding the footprints. However, here they should be understood as icons whose significance has been fundamentally altered. Here the signified is no longer the innate martial character of the archetypal autonomous Rajput king, as it was for generations of Naruka kings, nor royal patronage of the arts of weapons production. Read against the contemporary early colonial backdrop of Sheodin Singh’s troubled political career, they and the rest of the chatrī bespeak of his perhaps vain attempt to allude to a bygone era of greater prestige, prosperity, and patronage through the appropriation of particular elements of his ancestors’ chatrīs, if only in restricted ways. Vinay Singh’s chatrī offers an intriguing case study that demonstrates specifically which spaces, times, and figures from its past this particular Rajput dynasty considered the most worthy of reference and which sites of memory embodied those notions. For the Kachhwahas of Jaipur, the most potent motifs and architectural forms, appropriated by successive generations of kings, were the cruciform architectural plan, pāñchratanā dome cluster, and alcohol bottles in the murals of Man Singh’s chatrī, as well as the sculptures of female dancers and musicians from his temple, all of which reference Man Singh himself and the historical moment in which he ruled. While certain elements of Bakhtawar Singh’s chatrī have been discarded (the architectural form, impressive scale, and costly construction materials) in Vinay Singh’s, what is retained (the weapons in relief on the pāliyā) suggests that, at least to Sheodin Singh, these icons were the most meaningful Naruka sites of memory. The reliefs of traditional Rajput weapons were enough to signal an era of sovereign rule in Alwar, a time when the state’s wealthy independent rulers fulfilled the dictates of their rājādharma by engaging in battle and supporting the arts. Chatrī patronage is associated most closely with the royal Rajputs. However, by at least the eighteenth century other communities throughout Rajasthan, notably religious and mercantile groups that harbored their own inheritance

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concerns and sought to establish their visual presence in the built environ· ment appropriated the chatrī tradition from the Rajputs. While these non-Rajput patrons, including the Dadu Panthis and Marwari Baniyas, appropriated both the practice of memorialization through permanent architectural structures and the typical domed, open-pillared chatrī form, their memorials offer decorative programs that are specific to their communities. Examined through the lens the Kachhwaha and Naruka traditions, certain facets of the chatrī are retained, while others are exchanged, across communities and over time, in the process of appropriation. The community-specific symbols displayed in the Dadu Panth and Marwari Baniya chatrīs buttress their patrons’ claims to religious and worldly powers, respectively.

The Chatrī as a Legitimizer of Sacred Authority: Memorializing the Dadu Panthis

Having considered how the Naruka kings profited politically and gained secular authority from their association with the Dadu Panth religious order, and how Pratap Singh referenced his association with the order in the mural cycle in his father’s chatrī, it is appropriate now to consider how the reverse is likewise true. High-ranking members of the Dadu Panth order legitimized their sacred authority through their close association with the different royal Kachhwaha houses. Like the Rajputs, the Dadu Panthis commissioned chatrīs and exploited their memorial commissions as a stage upon which to celebrate their lineage, which was closely associated with their right to run the order. In addition to the Dadu Panthis, several other religious organizations in northwestern India, including the Shaivite Naths and Jains, have established “dynastic” chatrī baghs, usually at a temple or a maṭ (monastery). These orders were also associated with different Rajput courts and were influenced by the royal chatrī traditions, which they adapted to conform to their sectarian needs. Thus while the cenotaph patrons from these various religious orders retained the sign (chatrī), they altered the signified from an essentially political to a religious one. Of course the line between these two seemingly distinct categories of sacred and profane is not always so distinct. Since at least the eighteenth century, the histories of the Dadu Panth order and the Kachhwaha and Naruka kings have been intertwined. The order enjoyed royal patronage and was given grants of land to administer, such as the one at Rajgarh, in Alwar state, which effectively transformed the heads of this religious order into jagīrdārs, an aristocratic title otherwise predominantly

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limited to Rajputs.28 The Dadu Panthis also enjoyed wealth from their land revenue, were granted a tax-exempt status by the darbārs, received generous donations from their followers, and shared in war booty when the nāgās fought in the state armies.29 In times of peace, the Kachhwaha and Naruka kings enlisted the Dadu Panth nāgās to collect taxes from reluctant peasants and landowners.30 The figure who benefitted most, financially and politically, from this symbiotic relationship with the Kachhwaha and Naruka courts was the mahant who headed a monastery, and who was in some instances rāj mahant to the king of Jaipur or Alwar, or the ācaryā (head of the entire order) based in Naraina. The wealth and land they amassed has traditionally been the mahants’ and ācaryās’ personal property. That the mahants of Alwar have been possessors of substantial wealth is evidenced by the fact that at times other jagīrdārs and even the kings of Alwar have borrowed money from them to fund military and building programs.31 With such wealth and power at stake, it is hardly surprising that new ma­ hants and ācaryās, like Rajput kings, felt the need to participate in established visual legitimizing practices. As priests of the order take vows of celibacy, the position is passed on when the mahant or ācaryā nears middle age and appoints his successor.32 The Dadu Panthis established chatrī baghs at Naraina, 28

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According to primary textual sources housed at the Bikaner State Archives, by at least 1779 the Dadu Panthis received official recognition and financial support for the spiritual and martial services the order provided to the Jaipur court (personal communication with Monika Boehm-Tettelbach (Horstmann), July 24, 2008). Mahant Kailash Das recounted that nāgā troops accompanied Rājā Man Singh I of Amber on the Kabul campaign he fought for Akbar in 1581. As a reward for their military service, Akbar gave the nāgā troops permission to loot Kabul and keep all the booty (interview, August 19, 2006). The head of the nāgā Dadu Panthis drew a regular salary from the Kachhwaha court. The members of this group originally heralded from the Kshatriya jāti. Therefore a martial vocation came naturally to, and was socially acceptable for, them even after they changed caste by becoming members of the religious order. J.N. Asopa, “Disciples of Dadu and Dadu Panth,” in History and Culture of Rajasthan: From Earliest Times up to 1956 ad, ed. Shyam Singh Ratnawat and Krishna Gopal Sharma (Jaipur: Center for Rajasthan Studies, 2004), 392–93. Lorenzen, “Warrior Ascetics,” 70. Interview with Mahant Prakash, of Alwar, Rajgarh ṭhikānā, January 8, 2006. This fact is corroborated in “Sri Govind Das jī,” in Śri Haridās Shastra Sant Saroj, an unpublished record in Mahant Prakash’s library of the history of the lineage of the Jaipur and Alwar mahants, pages unnumbered. As noted in the Śri Haridās Shastra (pages unnumbered), after the living rāj mahant named his successor, the Kachhwaha or Naruka king approved his choice and sent a cloak as a token of his acceptance. This echoes the courtly tradition of conferring a khilat (robe

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for the ācaryās, and at Rajgarh and Jaipur, for the mahants and rāj mahants. These necropolises reflect the order’s wealth, royal affiliation, and need to unequivocally document the spiritual line of descent and transference of power, through both image and text.33 The mahants’ and ācaryās’ perceived need to document their lineage may have also been informed by competition for royal support from other religious orders. Monika Boehm-Tettelbach (Horstmann) has described how during the rule of Sawai Jai Singh the various Vaishnava sects in Jaipur competed for royal favor and the benefits that accompanied that distinction. Great wealth and prestige were at stake, and the different orders responded by compiling the lineages of their spiritual heads and displaying them prominently in their temples.34 The further back in time and the more meticulously the spiritual lineage was documented, the more tenable the order’s claim to power. The Dadu Panth order is not Vaishnava, yet considering that followers of these two sects operated within the same courtly milieu, its members would undoubtedly have felt pressure to similarly reference their lineage in the face of this threat to their worldly status. The Dadu Panth chatrī baghs are located on the grounds of their sprawling, palatial maṭs. Unlike the royal Kachhwaha and Naruka chatrīs, which do not offer dedicatory inscriptions preserving the names of the patron or the memorialized, nor include recognizable images of the deceased or their ancestors, Dadu Panth chatrīs provide an inscription on the pāliyā that details both the name of the deceased and the patron, and carefully records that the patron was the śiśa (student, and, here, successor and heir) of the memorialized. The inscription on the pāliyā encircles two pairs of footprints, which in this case are synecdoches of the individuals they commemorate and the transference of spiritual authority within the order. The ācaryās’ chatrīs at the Dadu Panth necropolis at Naraina are all built of marble and octagonally planned, with segmented domes supported by baluster columns (Fig. 2.14). Their uniform shape and construction material conveys

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of honor) on favored nobles as a token of approval. Despite its royal Islamic origins, the Rajputs also received and gifted khilats. The Dadu Panthis’ participation in this system reflects the ācaryās’ and mahants’ semipolitical status, approximating that of a Rajput noble. According to the Śri Haridās shastra (pages unnumbered), Sawai Pratap Singh Naruka’s adopted successor, Bakhtawar Singh, granted Govind Das a jagīr at Rajgarh, which established it as the seat of the Alwar branch of the order, and where it remains today. “The Rāmānandīs of Gālta (Jaipur, Rajasthan),” in Multiple Histories: Culture and Society in the Study of Rajasthan, ed. Lawrence A. Babb, Varsha Joshi, Michael W. Meister (Jaipur: Rawat, 2002): 155, 159.

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figure 2.14

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Chatrī of Achariya Gulab Das at the Dadu Panth chatrī bagh, Narenia, second half of the twentieth century

the continuity of the office rather than the individuality of each ācaryā. (Fig. 2.15) The interior drums offer detailed portraits of the ācaryās, beginning with Dadu Dayal (1544–1603), the founder of the order, and progressing sequentially through portraits of all his successors before concluding with the ācaryā to whom the chatrī is dedicated. Each portrait is accompanied by an inscription identifying the subject and the dates that he served in office. Images of the ācaryās dating to before the mid-twentieth century are more schematized, having been based on portrait paintings made during the sitter’s life. Later examples are more personalized and are clearly reproductions of studio photographs. The sequential, labeled portraits of the ācaryās visually map the order’s

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figure 2.15

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Interior drum of Achariya Hari Ram’s chatrī, Narenia. As the figure in whose memory the cenotaph was built, Hari Ram (center) completes the portrait cycle of the former achariyas in the chatrī. To the right is a portrait of Dadu Dayal, the founder of the order. His image begins the portrait cycles in all of the Narenia chatrīs.

lineage from its foundation, through the previous ācaryā to the current one, who is the patron of the chatrī. Significantly, this genealogical mapping through portraiture has a parallel in Rajput palace decoration, as seen, for example, in the Phool Mahal, the private audience hall in the Jodha Rathores’ Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, where the kings of Marwar are represented in sequential ovoid portraits on the cornice. A similar portraiture program is found in the Jodha Rathores’ Jaswant Thara, a memorial hall adjacent to Mehrangarh. Chatrī baghs, with their sequential order of cenotaphs, serve as indexes of the commemorated kings and chart the dynastic line to the patron of the memorial. Royal portrait cycles fulfill a similar function in darbārs, tracing the dynastic line to the living king who is presiding over the assembly. The portraits in the Dadu Panth chatrīs achieve the same goal, and the status of the chatrī’s patron as the new ācaryā is then reiterated through the inscription on the pāliyā. Lineage and authority are thus made manifest in similar media in both royal and sacred chatrīs. The chatrīs of the Dadu Panth mahants at Rajgarh and Jaipur (Fig. 2.16) are larger than those of the ācaryās. (Fig. 2.17) They offer extensive mural programs

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Chatrī of Mahant Govind Das, Jaipur

with scenes from Vaishnavite mythology, images of Dadu Dayal in darbār, and parades in which members of the order process alongside state troops and nobles under the Jaipur or Alwar state flag. These scenes of royal processions also include empty vehicles, such as buggies and palanquins, like those that feature on the plinth of Mahārājā Madho Singh II’s chatrī at Gaitor. The relationship between the Jaipur and Alwar kings and the Dadu Panthis was symbiotic; each benefited financially and politically, and each group’s position was legitimized through their association with the other. These relationships were

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figure 2.17

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Fresco panel depicting a procession and Dadu Dayal in dārbār (center right), interior of Govind Das’s chatrī

reaffirmed through public performative events, such as state parades, and in the decorative programs of their respective chatrīs.

Shardul Singh and the Pāñch Pannā System in Jhunjhunu, Shekhawati

The Shekhawati region is situated between the former kingdoms of Jaipur and Bikaner. This part of Rajasthan is unique in that although it was ruled by Rajputs, since the nineteenth century the merchants who belong to the Baniya jāti and are thus members of the business, trader, and money-lending class, have enjoyed a more conspicuous presence in the built environment because of three different building types: the lavishly painted havelī (mansion with a central courtyard), temples, and chatrīs.35 While elsewhere in Rajasthan 35

Baniya is a jāti in the larger Vaishya, or trader, varṇ. The northern Rajasthani diasporic Baniya community is often collectively referred to as Marwari outside of Rajasthan, due to the widespread misconception that they all originate from Marwar. In fact, the former princely state of Marwar (Jodhpur) is located further to the west of many Baniyas’

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Rajput architecture has overwhelmingly dominated the built environment, in Shekhawati the merchants have established an equal, if not dominant, presence. Both the Shekhawat Rajputs (who belong to the region’s ruling dynasty) and the Baniyas commemorate their ancestors with chatrīs. These two groups have a markedly different communal dharm, which is referenced in their respective memorial commissions. This section first considers how the mural and epigraphic programs in a Shekhawat Rajput king’s chatrī record the unprecedented division of his kingdom among multiple heirs. It then examines how the region’s Baniyas adopted the chatrī as a memorial form and adapted it as a means to advertise aspects of their communal identity and dharm. In 1471, Rao Shekha (r. 1445–88), a Kachhwaha tazīmī sardār, declared independence from the Amber court and carved out his own kingdom of Shekhawati, in a manner similar to what Rao Rājā Sawai Pratap Singh Naruka would do nearly three centuries later. Rao Shekha’s descendants, referred to as the Shekhawat Rajputs because they trace their position as autonomous rulers to him, expanded their territories and established additional splinter kingdoms. The Shekhawat Rajputs reached the height their power under Rao Shardul Singh (1681–1742), who ruled the kingdom of Jhunjhunu. Under his rule, in 1738, during the reign of Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur, the Shekhawats were reinstated as Kachhwaha tazīmī sardārs, while still retaining their autonomy.36 Before his death, Shardul Singh broke with the established Rajput convention of inheritance through primogeniture, and in an act unprecedented in Rajput history decreed that Jhunjhunu was to be divided equally among his

36

ancestral lands. The majority of these merchants trace their ancestry to Shekhawati or other sites in northern Rajasthan. Moreover, “Marwari” has become a generic term across north India for members of the Baniya merchant class, including those as far from Shekhawati as Gujarat. However, while the term “Marwari” has now come to be used as a tag that includes members of non-Muslim trading communities throughout India, within Rajasthan such people are known by the name of their jāti, Baniya, or varṇ, Vaishya. Within Rajasthan, “Marwari” refers exclusively to those from the former state of Marwar. As Anne Hardgrove aptly notes: “Indeed, there are no Marwaris as such in Rajasthan. They only become Marwaris when they leave,” (Community and Public Culture: The Marwaris in Calcutta (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), 6). Here, I refer specifically to Hindu and Jain Baniyas whose ancestors migrated from Shekhawati. For a discussion of the name, dharm, and public identity of this community, see in addition to Hardgrove, Lawrence A. Babb, Alchemies of Violence: Myths of Identity and the Life of Trade in Western India (New Delhi: Sage, 2004), especially 13–33. For a concise summary of Shekhawati’s history, see Abha Narian Lambah, Shekhawati: Havelis of the Merchant Princes (Mumbai: Marg, 2013), 11–15, and Rima Hooja’s chapter in that volume, “A Multiplicity of Rulers: The Political History of Shekhawati,” 24–32.

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five surviving sons: Zorawar, Kishen, Akhay, Nawal and Kesari Singh. These land divisions were to then be passed on to each of Shardul Singh’s five sons’ respective eldest sons, in perpetuity. The unique system of land distribution and rulership Shardul Singh established is known as pāñch pannā (five divisions) and remained in effect until Indian independence. Abhai Singh, ruler of the nearby kingdom of Marwar, was concerned that this land division would compromise the region’s political stability, and unsuccessfully attempted to prevent it.37 Undoubtedly taking inspiration from their erstwhile liege lords, the Kachhwahas of Amber, the Shekhawats invented their own chatrī tradition as a means of legitimizing their rule as autonomous kings. Unfortunately, few Shekhawat chatrīs that were erected before Shardul Singh’s rule survive. In 1750, seven years after Mahārājā Ishwari Singh of Jaipur commissioned a chatrī for his father, Jai Singh, in the new Kachhwaha capital as a way to assert his sole claim to power, Shardul Singh’s five heirs co-commissioned his chatrī in Parasrampura, the capital of Jhunjhunu (Fig. 2.18). Shardul Singh’s plastered stone memorial is in the standard single-domed and pillared chatrī form. The decoration is confined to the interior of the dome, which offers a detailed mural program. Amid Hindu mythological scenes—Sita and Rama enthroned in darbār and the battle of Lanka (here, appropriately, Rajputized members of Hanuman’s army assemble beneath a Shekhawat flag)—are images of royal pastimes such as elephant fights, wrestling matches, and hunting scenes, as well as depictions of Shardul Singh in darbār. Each darbār scene is framed in a schematized pavilion inspired by contemporary Rajput palace architecture and painting, and crowned by architectural chatrīs, which frame female figures, indicating their presence in the palace zenānā (Fig. 2.19). Shardul Singh himself appears multiple times throughout the mural program, identifiable because of his hieratic scale, the rose he holds to his nose, and the diminutive fly-whisk- and hookah-bearing servants that attend to him. Several scenes depict him attended by five Rajput warrior noblemen, who, considering their number and the division of his kingdom among his five sons, must represent those sons and their father in his court, visually documenting their lineage and equal inheritance. Whereas inscriptions were not an integral aspect of the earlier Shekhawat or Kachhwaha chatrī traditions, Shardul Singh’s sons commissioned not one but two painted inscriptions on the upper section of the drum of their father’s chatrī. Significantly, both are in Bhagari, the local vernacular language, rather than the fusion of the courtly language and Sanskrit that is more common to 37

Hooja, “A Multiplicity of Rulers,” 27–28.

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Chatrī of Rao Shardul Singh Shekawat of Parasrampura, Jhunjhunu, Shekawati, commissioned by his five sons

chatrī inscriptions throughout Rajasthan. The use of Bhagari indicates the patrons’ desire that the semantic content of the inscriptions be comprehensible to the widest possible audience. The content of both inscriptions is nearly identical: each begins by honoring the Hindu deities Ganesh, Rama, Lakshmi, and Saraswati, followed by the date of the chatrī’s completion (1750) and a note that it was during the reign of the emperor Sri Badshah Ahmad Shah. The emperor’s name was probably included both to confirm the date and to lend the commission and its patrons imperial associations, as well as, by extension, much-needed political clout.

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figure 2.19

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Mural section on the interior of the dome of Rao Shardul Singh’s chatrī

The inscriptions then note that the structure is Shardul Singh’s memorial, selfreferentially and specifically using the word chatrī. Both conclude by noting that the chatrī was built by his five sons, each of which is named: Zorawar Singhjī, Kishen Singhjī, Akhay Singhjī, Nawal Singhjī and Kesari Singhjī.38 Chatrī patronage by the deceased ruler’s eldest son and heir was and remains such a well-established tradition that even among those cenotaphs that do offer inscriptions, few specifically state the name of the patron. It is typically taken for granted; to spell it out perhaps seemed superfluous. In fact, closer inspection of the chatrī inscriptions that do include the patron’s (or, in this particular case, patrons’) name suggests the patron’s perceived need to stridently advertise his lineage in public by not only commissioning the memorial but labeling it too. In light of the unconventional system of inheritance Shardul Singh instituted, and the objections of neighboring kings, Shardul Singh’s five sons probably deemed it necessary to reference their lineage through the chatrī’s mural and epigraphic programs. The epigraphs’ scribes also provided their own names—Boyal Deva Rajput and Prem Singh—the latter adding his father’s and brother’s names. Both inscriptions also inform us that the dha bai (child of a wet nurse; i.e., a foster sibling) Chutroji oversaw the 38

Jī is an honorific suffix.

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work. Chutroji’s mother is then identified as the wet nurse of a specific wife of Shardul Singh (presumably the mother of one of the five sons and heirs). Finally, the name of the construction overseer, Pasa Ramji, is included. Why were so many additional names and so much seemingly extraneous information included in the epigraphic program in Shardul Singh’s chatrī? All these figures were involved in the construction of the memorial and were thus witnesses of sorts, who could attest to the identities of the structure’s patrons. After all, the commission of a chatrī is a prerogative traditionally restricted to new Rajput kings. The patron princes’ identities are all carefully recorded for posterity, together with those of the scribes (and in one case his kin); Chutroji and the royal wet nurse; and the construction overseer. When the identities of those involved in the construction of a monument are so carefully preserved on the monument itself, it indicates a need for accountability: the named figures are witnesses and the recording of their names lends authenticity and veracity to the memorial and the purpose of its existence.

Memorializing the Nouveaux Riches: Baniya Chatrīs in Shekhawati

Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Baniyas have left their distinctive impress on Shekhawati’s built environment through their prolific architectural patronage, which typically surpasses the commissions of the Shekhawat Rajputs in terms of scale and decoration. Paradoxically, however, it was only after the Baniyas began to migrate out of the region and make their fortunes in the new, faraway colonial entrepôts—often returning only for brief visits—that they increased their visual presence back in their ancestral hometowns through the commission of temples, havelīs and chatrīs. Between the first and the early nineteenth centuries, Shekhawati was a major commercial hub linking the coast of northwest India, the Indus Valley, and the country’s central and eastern regions. With the establishment of these trade routes, Shekhawati became attractive to merchants and moneylenders for its network of bore wells, which ensured reliable water sources along the journey. With the establishment of the Shekhawat Rajput dynasties, another attraction became, initially, low taxes. Trade and commerce lured large numbers of Baniyas to settle in the region, and they became predominantly responsible for Shekhawati’s centuries of prosperity. However, by the early nineteenth century, mercantile activity in the region began to abate. At that time the British residents at Jaipur and Bikaner had persuaded the rulers of those states to lower the taxes they levied on trade caravans traveling through their territories, as a way to woo travelers to their own states, bypassing Shekhawati. As trade

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revenue was actively diverted away from Shekhawati, the merchant families who had for generations depended upon it were left without income.39 Faced with this slump in their fortunes, Baniyas looked beyond their homeland to the new colonial cities, particularly Bombay and Calcutta, as sites to reestablish their mercantile endeavors. In their new locations, Baniyas enjoyed phenomenal commercial success and amassed vast fortunes. Today ethnic ­Rajasthani Baniyas whose ancestors migrated from Shekhawati remain among India’s wealthiest, most powerful, and most prominent citizens. Anne Hard­ grove has examined how, as they acquired vast fortunes, the “Marwari” Baniyas sought to increase their social capital both in their newly adopted cities and back in their hometowns. Among the most conspicuous ways they did this was through prolific patronage of philanthropic buildings and institutions, particularly temples, as well as religious festivals and parades, to which they traditionally donated one-fourth of their annual income.40 While philanthropy has a long history in various merchant communities throughout India, it has predominantly been a royal prerogative for a number of practical reasons. In chapter 1 we saw how the royal iṣṭdevā was the fount of a Hindu king’s power, which Mahārājā Madho Singh of Jaipur made explicit in his deference to the image of Govind jī from the state temple on his journey to England. Temple building is a merit-generating act and donating to the state temple, which enshrines the royal dynastic iṣṭdevā, ensures the king’s political success and announces the divine benediction of his rule. In sponsoring the building and upkeep of temples in his state and beyond, and by other good works, a king performed his legitimacy, as these are integral aspects of rājādharma.41 Hardgrove notes that the Rajasthani Baniyas’ profuse patronage, both in their new cities and throughout the country, suggests that successful merchants have replaced royals as social and financial leaders, caretakers, philanthropists, and temple donors in modern India. Baniyas appropriated royal behavior to legitimize their new power and reinvent themselves.42 Their surplus of newly acquired wealth afforded Baniyas ample opportunity to selectively approximate their Rajput rulers back in Shekhawati, while they themselves remained “abroad.” Although resettled far from Shekhawati, these 39 40 41

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Ilay Cooper, The Painted Towns of Shekhawati (New Delhi: Prakash Books, 2009), 23–31. Hardgrove, Community and Public Culture, particularly 1–19, 69–80. Among others: Burton Stein’s introduction to the special issue on south Indian temples of Indian Economic and Social History Review 14 (1977): 1–9, and Cynthia Talbot, “Temples, Donors, and Gifts: Patterns of Patronage in Thirteenth-Century South India,” The Journal of Asian Studies 50, no. 2 (May, 1991): 308–40. Hardgrove, Community and Public Culture, 69–80.

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parvenu merchants maintained strong ties with their hometowns. The Baniyas’ fortunes funded a building boom that fundamentally altered the region’s urban morphology, making it visibly more Baniya than Rajput and thus recasting the merchants as the region’s social and financial leaders, as it had in cities outside the region. It was, and remains, the ultimate expression of social and financial success for a merchant to commission five structures in his ancestral hometown: a temple in honor of the family deity, a havelī, a well, a caravanserai, and a chatrī for his father.43 Studies on Shekhawati’s visual culture focus almost exclusively on the Baniya havelīs, which are covered inside and out with lively, colorful murals (Fig. 2.20). In contrast to the growing corpus of literature on the painted havelīs, scholars typically note the existence of the region’s chatrīs only in passing. Hardgrove’s compelling analysis of the havelīs examines how these houses anchor their absent owners—who probably never lived there—to an ancestral homeland, thereby giving the “residents” imagined roots after they migrated away. She divides the frescoes of the Baniya havelīs into two categories: sacred and secular in their thematic content.44 Those with sacred content, which Hardgrove terms the “bhakti (devotional) style,” include episodes from Hindu mythology and reference the Baniyas’ Vaishnavite piety—a salient aspect of their public identity. Secular scenes refer to modernity and the British presence in the Indian metropolises and include images of locomotives and foreign women seated in “Western”-style chairs. The categories sacred and secular frequently overlap in the Shekhawati havelī murals, often with charming results, such as images of Radha and Krishna traveling in a convertible Packard. In short, the havelī murals’ dual themes work in concert to broadcast key aspects of their patrons’ identity: piety, financial success, cosmopolitanism, and association with the new, dominant colonial power. The havelī murals also communicate their owners’ identities through what they do not depict. Conspicuously absent are scenes of military parades, weapons, hunting, and alcohol bottles. This is equally apt, as integral to the dharm and identity of this community, whether Jain or Hindu, is ahiṃsā (literally “nonviolence”; not harming any living being, which extends to strict vegeta­ rianism). As noted in chapter 1, hunting, warfare, meat and alcohol consumption are integral aspects of Rajput dharm and consequently feature in their paintings and in murals and friezes in their palaces and chatrīs. Meat 43 44

Ilay Cooper, “Shekhawati’s Architecture and the Building Boom,” in Shekhawati: Havelis of the Merchant Princes, 33. Hardgrove, “Merchant Houses as Spectacles of Modernity,” in Community and Public Culture.

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Courtyard in Seth Arjun Das Goenka’s havelī, Dhunload, Shekawati showing mural work

and alcohol are substances associated with the characteristic of rājas and thus impart heat, passion, and strength to their consumers. While useful to the martial Rajputs, it would not behoove merchants to cultivate these qualities. Awareness of these communal differences manifests in the thematic content of the havelī murals. Rajputs are identifiable in these Baniya spaces by their

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Mural section in the Goenka havelī in Dhunload. In the upper section Rajputs (identifiable through their turbans) drink alcohol and hold rifles.

iconography: wearing distinctive turbans, carrying weapons, holding alcohol bottles, and at times appearing visibly intoxicated (Fig. 2.21). Unsurprisingly, these humorous, stereotyped renditions of the Rajputs are confined to murals in the havelīs’ interiors. Such private spaces provided their patrons with an arena in which to safely parody their lords, whom they were socially compelled to respect in public. The Baniyas’ awareness and cultivation of their differences and similarities with the Rajputs informs much of their art and public identity in Shekhawati. Like the chatrī, the havelī is of a Rajput origin. But in commissioning larger and more lavishly painted havelīs, the Baniyas not only approximated but surpassed the identities and prestige of the Rajputs. Similarities and differences

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between these two communities’ public identities deserves further examination here as they are complex, seemingly paradoxical, and ultimately necessary to understanding what these two building types achieve as visual strategies. On the one hand, the respective identities and dharms of the Raj­ puts and Baniyas appear antagonistic: The former are associated with rulership and warfare; they partake of meat and alcohol. The hereditary occupations of the latter, on the other hand, are trade related, and Baniyas are well known for their dedication to ahiṃsā. The consumption of alcohol and meat is antithetic to their dharm. However, the histories and identities of these two communities in fact intersect in many ways. Members of the Baniya community highlight selective areas in which they and the Rajput intersect, both to asso­ ciate themselves with the ruling elite, thereby legitimizing their wealth and power, and to allow themselves to maintain the non-negotiable aspects of their dharm, such as ahiṃsā. According to their dynastic mytho-histories, several Baniya families descend from Rajputs, but their ancestors relinquished the Rajput caste, to distance themselves from the violence that characterizes Rajput dharm and instead cultivate ahiṃsā.45 Thus, so the logic goes, royal activities and prerogatives are not really so alien to the Baniyas. Several notable Baniya families also trace their lineage to ancestors who behaved in a valorous, Rajput manner and were consequently deified, such as Rani Satī Ma, whose main temple in Jhunjhunu is among the wealthiest in India.46 As will be examined in relation to the Bika Rathore chatrīs in chapter 4, becoming a satī after the death of her husband was until the early nineteenth century an aspect of a Rajput woman’s dharm that generated prestige for her marital and natal families and the community at large. The Baniya chatrīs employ the same materials and messages of their patrons’ financial success and royal approximations as their havelīs. Moreover, as chatrīs are Rajput in origin and intimately associated with that community it is not surprising that the Baniyas adopted the practice of memorializing their ancestors through chatrīs as they began to emulate other Rajput behaviors and present themselves as Shekhawati’s new elite. (Fig. 2.22) The chatrī of Ram Gopal Poddar, which a painted inscription notes was built in 1872, in the city of Ramgarh, is typical of the region’s Baniya cenotaphs in form, scale, decoration, and function. Recall that Shardul Singh’s chatrī in Parasrampura, which is typical of Rajput chatrīs in Shekhawati, is single domed. It rests on a low plinth. Ram Gopal Poddar’s chatrī, which is nearly eighty feet in 45 46

Babb, Alchemies of Violence, 13–33. Hardgrove, “Sati Worship and Marwari Public Identity in India,” in Community and Public Culture, 248–85.

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Chatrī of Ram Gopal Poddar, Ramgarh, Shekawati

height and located in a walled garden, offers a more complex architectural form and plan. It is a double-storied, multipurpose structure that combines memorialization and philanthropy. One side of the lower level houses a public Shiva temple, which is attended twice daily by a priest who has been employed by the Poddar family since the chatrī’s inauguration (Fig. 2.23). The other side of the lower level houses a public primary school. On the grounds of the chatrī complex are rest houses for use by travelers or relatives who come to the site for memorial services. The Ram Gopal Poddar funerary complex also offers a monumental bore well, providing travelers and their pack animals with water. Unique to Shekhawati, these wells, which are characterized by four soaring towers to ensure their visibility from a great distance, were commissioned by the region’s Baniyas. The wells also frequently feature in the murals on Baniya chatrīs, as if to reiterate the community’s commitment to providing water to thirsty travelers and their cattle (Fig. 2.24, 2.25). The second level of Ram Gopal Poddar’s chatrī offers a central, octagonally planned pavilion with a segmented dome. This is ringed by smaller pavilions with bangaldar roofs. Each dome is painted with frescoes that are similar in style and thematic content to those in the havelīs: scenes from Hindu mythology, British soldiers dressed in red coats and carrying muskets, British civilians with fair beards and top hats, and British women seated on chairs and applying

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Shiva shrine on the first floor of Ram Gopal Poddar’s chatrī

makeup (Fig. 2.26). Other murals depict the new inventions the Baniyas witnessed in their adopted cities, such as automobiles and Ferris wheels. The few scenes of fighting depict Rajputs, who are identifiable through their dress. The Baniya havelīs in Shekhawati were built for “residents” who were never intended to inhabit them, and their chatrīs were built to mark the location of the remains of an ancestor who lived and was cremated far away. The chatrīs weave ancestors’ corporeal remains into Shekhawati’s urban fabric, thereby territorially claiming it as Baniya space, through a building type associated with the royal Rajputs. As lieux de mémoire, the havelīs and the chatrīs trace their patron’s family to a specific geographic location, making lineage and

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figure 2.24

Monumental well at Ram Gopal Poddar’s chatrī

(arguably fictive) belonging visible. The monumental scale and highly specific decorative programs of the Baniya havelīs and chatrīs create and disseminate a very selective public communal identity to the widest possible audience.

Conclusion

The sudden, dramatic changes in architectural form, decoration, and scale displayed by the royal Kachhwaha chatrīs in Jaipur (the subject of chapter 1), represented their individual patron’s visual responses to threats to their personal political power. In contrast, the various communities examined in this chapter each built or altered the forms and decoration of their memorials in direct

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figure 2.25

Mural section in a Baniya chatrī in Shekhawati. The upper register renders a well.

figure 2.26

Mural panel on the interior of the dome of Ram Gopal Poddar’s Chatrī. The upper and lower registers render scenes from Hindu mythology. The light-skinned male holding a rose who appears twice in the middle register is probably a European; the Marwari Baniyas came in contact with them in the urban centers where they relocated.

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response to either their parent dynasty, as in the cases of the Narukas and Shardul Singh’s five sons, or the dominant cultural group in the region, as in the cases of the Dadu Panthis and Shekhawati Baniyas. As we have seen through examples in chapter 1 and here, chatrīs could be sites where lineage, whether genealogical or spiritual, was made visible and where public identity and adherence to dharm were announced, at times both in opposition to and emulation of other communities. What the chatrīs commissioned by the communities examined up to this point—the Kachhwahas, Narukas, Dadu Panthis, Shekhawati Rajputs, and Baniyas—share in common is an architectural form that mimics an umbrella to harness the signification of extraordinariness the umbrella conveys in sacred and secular Indic contexts. If the umbrella was, and remains, such a potent conveyer of authority, royalty, and divinity in South Asia, why would a dynasty elect to build chatrīs that do not take the umbrella form? What messages would that convey? Chapter 3 examines the Jodha Rathore Rajput cenotaphs in the former state of Marwar. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the Jodha Rathores abandoned the umbrella form and appropriated an archaized temple form for their memorials, to craft an intertextual relationship with a religiously and politically charged lieu de mémoire and elide contemporaneous political realities in Marwar.

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A Deceptive Message of Resistance: Nostalgia and the Early Jodha Rathores’ Renaissant Devals The chatrīs of the Kachhwaha, Naruka, and Shekhawat Rajputs, as well as those of the Dadu Panthis and Shekhawati Baniyas, all display variations of the umbrella form and thereby convey the associations of extraordinariness it evokes. However, to communicate messages of legitimate Hindu kingship, Rajput ceno­taphs need not always take this architectural form. At certain historical moments other lieux de mémoire and typologies were deemed to more effectively convey political legitimacy, communal identity, or a particular ideology. Between the late-sixteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries, the Jodha Rathore Rajputs, who ruled the former state of Marwar in western Rajasthan, memo­ rialized their ancestors with chatrīs that took renaissant forms appropriated from temples built in the region several centuries earlier. The Kachhwahas, Narukas, and Shekhawat Rajputs cultivated diplomatic relations with the Mughals, and this alliance imparted a strong Mughal flavor to their arts, in media that included the chatrīs. Although the Jodha Rathores were among the first Rajput houses to ally with the Mughals, their loyalty was inconsistent and they frequently rebelled. This ambivalence is evident in their renaissant-style chatrīs, which in making reference to Marwar’s autonomous past announce their patrons’ covert reluctance to accept Mughal suzerainty. In the necropolis of Mandore, outside the Jodha Rathore capital of Jodhpur, six cenotaphs dating from the late-sixteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries stand in a row (Fig. 3.1). Rather than the open, domed, and arcuate form of most chatrīs, these structures possess formal and decorative programs reminiscent of western Indian medieval Hindu and Jain temples. This type of cenotaph is even referred to locally as a deval (literally “temple”). The first of the six cenotaphs commemorates Rao Maldev (r. 1532–62) and was commissioned by his son and successor, Rājā Udai Singh (r. 1583–95). The form of the memorial that Udai Singh commissioned for his father Deviated radically from the Jodha Rathores’ earlier cenotaphs, to unite his dynasty, and perhaps all Rajputs, in an “imagined community” that was sharply distinct from the Mughals, with whom they were compelled to ally in the late sixteenth century. Specifically, Maldev’s deval and those of three of his successors evoke local temples built by the Pratiharas, the Rajput rulers of the region from the eighth to eleventh centuries.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004300569_005

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figure 3.1 Devals commemorating Jodha Rathore kings at the necropolis of Mandore, near Jodhpur, former kingdom of Marwar. Local stone

In wealth, artistic patronage, and imperial Mughal favor, the Jodha Rathore Rajputs of Marwar were second only to the Kachhwahas of Amber and Jaipur. However, unlike the Kachhwahas, the Jodha Rathore’s alliance with the Mughals was frequently punctuated by discord. The Jodha Rathores initially resisted forging alliances with the Mughals at all, a policy overturned in the late-sixteenth century under Udai Singh, only to be revived again in the lateseventeenth century. If the Kachhwahas’ consistent solidarity with the Mughals accounts for the pronounced Mughal influence in their art, and the political and cultural distance the Sisodias of Mewar maintained from the empire accounts for the conspicuous lack of its influence in their commissions, the foreign policy and artistic commissions of the Jodha Rathores lies somewhere in between. At any given historical moment, the Jodha Rathores’ shifting relations with the Mughals appear to be reflected in the extent to which they embrace or eschew artistic styles associated with the empire. The result is a chatrī tradition that, over time, is as varied in form and decoration as the Kachhwahas,’ albeit for markedly different reasons. The Jodha Rathores take their dynastic name from their ancestor Rao Jodha, the eponymous founder of Jodhpur, who established the city as the capital of Marwar in 1459. The Jodha Rathores are the head of the Rathore clan, which has numerous branches. Between the early-thirteenth century, when the Rathores established themselves in western Rajasthan, and Indian independence, several younger princes who would have been disqualified from ever occu-

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pying the throne left Marwar to carve out their own independent kingdoms. The most successful of these splinter kingdoms was Bikaner, founded by Jodha’s son Rao Bika in 1465. This and the following chapter deal specifically with the Jodha Rathore branch of the family. The Bika Rathore chatrīs are the subject of chapter 5.

The Pratihara Paradigm

Before turning to the Jodha Rathores’ cenotaphs and the messages they deployed through their Pratihara-temple-style forms and decoration, it is essential to step further back in time to consider the Pratiharas and the history that dynasty shared with the Rashtrakutas, who were the Jodha Rathores’ ancestors. A brief consideration of these three dynasties’ entwined pasts is relevant at this juncture, as it was to inform the Jodha Rathores’ construction of their public identity and how they promoted it through the medium of funerary architecture. The reasons the Jodha Rathores referenced the Pratiharas in their memorials were varied, concomitantly signaling their past skirmishes with the Pratiharas, the Pratiharas’ victories over their Muslim Arab enemies, and the Pratiharas’ successful creation of a regional identity in what is now Rajasthan. The Jodha Rathores sought to harness these aspects of the Pratihara past, and possibly promote their own rule as a Pratihara renaissance, at the very moment when they reluctantly allied with the Mughals. The Pratihara clan comprised numerous subdivisions. Two branches of the family were directly involved politically and artistically in their homeland of Marudesha, the region the Jodha Rathores would later rule under the name of Marwar. These were the Gurjara Pratiharas, who forged a vast empire that spanned much of north India, from Bengal to Gujarat, from approximately 839 to 933, and the local Mandore Pratiharas, who were based in Mandore. These two branches of the Pratihara clan had tumultuous relations with their common enemy, Arab forces based in Sindh, and with each other. The Mandore branch established its capital in the mid-sixth century and was subordinated and made a feudatory of the Gurjara Pratiharas from the eight to early ninth centuries.1 The Gurjara and Mandore Pratiharas were both also active patrons 1 Members of the clan’s Mandore branch are called the Eenda Parihars in some sources. For a more thorough history of these two Pratihara dynasties, see Baij Nath Puri, The History of the Gurjara-Pratiharas (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1986), and Cynthia Packert Atherton, “Osiāñ: Art and Politics in Mārudeśa,” in The Sculpture of Early Medieval Rajasthan (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 12–48.

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of temples and religious sculptures, numerous examples of which survive, particularly in western Rajasthan.2 According to several sources, the Rathores’ origins may be traced to the Rashtrakutas, whose empire was based in the Deccan and was contemporaneous with, and antagonistic to, the Gurjara Pratiharas’.3 If the Rathores’ Rashtrakuta origins are indeed true, then the history of Rathore-Pratihara aggression may be traced back to at least the eighth century, when the Rashtrakuta and Pratihara dynasties, with their abutting territories, began their saga of constant skirmishes for the hegemony of north India.4 For much of the Pratiharas’ rule, they also faced significant threat from Muslim Arab forces that had settled in Sindh, on the western Marudesha border, in the early-eighth century. Under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, Arab forces conquered much of Central Asia and were attempting to expand eastward into the territory of both the Gurjara and Mandore Pratiharas. The Arab forces were such a threat to the Gurjara Pratiharas that emperors such as Mihira Bhoja I (ca. 836–85) styled their public identities as staunch Hindu protectors of land and religion against their incursions and circulated those identities through public inscriptions on edicts and their currency.5

2 Packert Atherton, ibid. 3 Among others: K.D. Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteers: The Western Rajputana States Residency and Bikaner (Gurgoan: Vintage, first printed 1922), 52. Bisheshwar Nath Reu, Glories of Marwar and the Glorious Rathors (Jodhpur: Archaeological Department, 1947), xi–xiii. Dhananajaya Singh, The House of Marwar (New Delhi: Roli, 1994), 17. 4 Vishuddhanand Pathak, “The Rise and Growth of the Gurjara Pratiharas,” in History and Culture of Rajasthan, 105. The Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas also vied for control of the city of Kannauj, the Pratihara imperial capital. The Rashtrakutas briefly occupied Kannauj in 916 and, later, after the fall of the Pratihara dynasty, in the early eleventh century. Although sources are imprecise and at times conflicting, several claim that a branch of the Rashtrakutas, the Gahadavalas, ruled from Kannauj from 1068 until 1194, when the last Gahadavala king, Jayachandra, was killed in battle with Muhammad of Ghor. The city was subsequently integrated into the newly established Ghurid sultanate. The remaining Gahadavalas, united under Rao Sheo (r. 1226–73), fled from the Ghuirds and relocated in western Rajasthan, where they established their kingdom in Marwar and ruled as the Rathores. Among others: Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteers, 52–53. Reu, Glories of Marwar, viii. 5 Reu, “The Growth of the Gurjara Pratiharas,” in Glories of Marwar, 116–17. Reu notes that the Gurjara Pratiharas’ prolific use of the Sanskrit term mlecha (outsider/ barbarian) in their coinage and other public texts. The term specifically refers to non-Hindus, who are thus deemed ritually impure, particularly through the taint of consuming foods Hindus traditionally regard as taboo, such as beef. Although historically not reserved exclusively for Muslims, or even those who dwelt outside of what is now known as India, the term was commonly used

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Recent scholarship rightly advocates for a reexamination of Hindu-Muslim relations in pre-colonial India, asserting that the situation was not one of categorical divisive religious communalism. Widely held belief that pre-colonial India was rent by religious tensions may largely be traced to colonial propaganda.6 However, it is still vital to acknowledge that religious tensions did at times indeed exist, and were inextricably intertwined with politics, land, and identity. As Finbarr Barry Flood points out, relations between Hindu and Muslim courts in pre-colonial India were not uniform and should be examined on case-by-case bases. For example, the Rashtrakutas cultivated diplomatic and trade relations with different Muslim groups, including the Arabs of Sindh (perhaps due to their shared enemy). By contrast, Arab, Persian, and Indian primary sources indicate that the Gurjara Pratiharas were hostile to Muslims in general.7 While the Gurjara Pratiharas’ antipathy toward Muslims, particularly Sindhi Arabs, was not exclusively due to religion—territorial expansion was probably the largest factor—the foreign invaders’ different religion undoubtedly informed the Pratiharas’ perception of them as “other.” This understanding in turn appears to have guided the Gurjara Pratiharas’ self-styled identity as protectors of their land and religion, their prolific patronage of temples, and their campaigns to bring back to the fold their former Hindu subjects who had converted to Islam.8 Both Pratihara groups’ promotion of their public identities, particularly through the arts, was a major factor that transformed what is now Rajasthan from a political and artistic provincial backwater into a thriving cosmopolitan center. The Gurjara and Mandore Pratiharas’ establishment of a powerful regional center fostered a political and cultural regional identity that was largely

to refer to Muslims in the early centuries of contact between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia. For further elaboration on the term, see Talbot, ibid., 698–99. 6 See: Richard M. Eaton, Temple Desecration and Muslim States in Medieval India (New Delhi: Hope India, 2004). Cynthia Talbot, “Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 37, no. 4 (1995): 694–5. 7 Flood, ibid., 20. 8 Although numerous dynasties that migrated into what is now India from Central Asia had assimilated and become caste Hindus by the medieval period, the Pratiharas were the first Indian dynasty to deal on a large scale with the issue of Hindu reclamation, particularly of those who were forcibly converted and women who were taken in battle with Muslim armies. Contemporaneous religious sources detail necessary purification rites and Arab primary sources, such as the writings of al-Biruni, note that Muslim converts were reinstated to Hinduism. Puri, History of the Gurjara-Pratiharas, 116–18.

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defined in opposition to the Arab forces from the west.9 In fact, the clan’s name, Pratihara (literally “doorkeeper”), references their self-designated role as protectors of their western border from foreign incursions. These were the very qualities that the Jodha Rathores would seek to access when they appropriated the Pratihara temple forms for their own chatrīs several centuries later. The Gurjara Pratiharas were displaced as the preeminent power in north India in 1018 when Mahmud of Ghazni conquered their capital, Kannauj. Although the imperial Gurjara Pratihara dynasty fell, several of the Pratihara subbranches, including the one at Mandore, continued to rule parts of central and western India for several more centuries. These Pratihara groups engaged in numerous battles with the various sultanates that encroached on their territories from their base in Delhi. In 1395, under Rao Chunda (r. 1383–1424), the Rathores entered onto the political stage of western Rajasthan when the Mandore Pratiharas proposed an alliance to defend the region against the Tughluq sultanate.10 The Rathore–Mandore Pratihara alliance was then cemented with Rao Chunda’s marriage to a Mandore Pratihara princess. The bride’s family gifted the Junagarh Fort in Mandore as dowry, and Rao Chunda relocated the capital of his kingdom to the site, where it remained until its transference to the nearby site of Jodhpur under Rao Jodha.11 The Rathores’ assumption of Mandore would have been a major, albeit protracted, victory as it concluded the centuries of battles between their parent dynasty, the Rashtrakutas, and the Pratiharas. Additionally (as discussed in relation to the Kachhwahas in chapter 1), the offering of their daughters in marriage was an established Rajput gesture of acknowledging the superiority of the groom’s family. Junagarh Fort would undoubtedly have been a potent physical reminder of the Rathores’ superior social prestige and military prowess. The fort and the other Pratihara structures (today largely in ruins) in the immediate vicinity, as well as a number of temples (now still in use) in the nearby temple town of Osian, were politically meaningful sites of memory that the Jodha Rathores referenced when their own autonomy and identity were compromised by their alliance with the Mughals in the late-sixteenth century.12 At that historic moment, the Jodha Rathores looked back in time with hope of emulating the Pratiharas, their royal predecessors in Marwar. The Pratihara ethos of resistance to foreign incursions, defense of their territory, their pro9 10 11 12

Packert Atherton, “Osiāñ: Art and Politics,” xv. Meister, “Art Regions,” 146–47. Singh, House of Marwar, 20–21. Ibid., 21. The several extant early medieval Hindu and Jain temples at Osian were commissioned by both the Mandore and Gurjara Pratiharas (Packert Atherton,“Osiāñ: Art and Politics”.

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lific artistic commissions, and creation of a regional identity in Marudesha/ Marwar were qualities with which the Jodha Rathores sought to identify through the appropriation of the Pratihara temple form in their chatrīs.

Rājā Udai Singh’s “Two Hats”: Politics and Memorialization at Mandore

Before they appropriated the tradition of memorializing their ancestors through permanent architectural structures in the fifteenth century, the Jodha Rathores commemorated their ancestors with a chābutrā surmounted by a stele. The earliest extant example marks the site of Rao Sheo Rathore’s dāh saṃskāra in Bithu village, where he died in battle with the Mamluk sultanate in 1273. Rao Sheo’s stele (now in the collection of the Sri Bangur Government Museum, Pali) offers a relief of the mounted king and his satī, who stands before the horse, her hands pressed together in a gesture of reverence. The date of their deaths is related in an accompanying inscription. While royal Jodha Rathores ultimately discarded the practice of raising funerary steles and figural memorialization (as is examined in chapter 5), the breakaway Bika Rathores of Bikaner retained steles and depictions of the memorialized as communal gendered paradigms. A cluster of chatrīs in the northeastern sector of Panch Kunda, the Rathores’ first chatrī bagh, located to the west of the ruins of Junagarh Fort, represents the Rathores’ oldest surviving architectural funerary memorials (Fig. 3.2). As with the earliest Kachhwaha chatrīs, the absence of inscriptions makes their precise identification impossible. Beginning with H.B. Garrick’s official Archaeological Survey report of 1883–84, several sources have accepted the identification of three of these chatrīs as the memorials of Raos Chunda, Ran Mal (r. 1427–38), and Jodha (r. 1459–88).13 Their sultanate-style domes and pillars— square planned at the bottom, circular at the top—indicate a debt to contemporaneous sultanate architectural traditions. However, the domes are corbeled, in the local style, reflecting the Rathore architects’ attempts to at least superficially emulate the new architectural technologies, despite their seeming unfamiliarity with the construction method. The Jodha Rathores’ appropriation of a sultanate architectural style may initially seem paradoxical considering that 13

Report of a Tour in the Panjâb and Râjpûtâna, vol. XXIII (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India,1887), 75. Later sources include Mahendra Singh Nagar, The Genealogical Survey of Marwar and Other States (Jodhpur: Maharaja Man Singh Pustak Prakash Research Center, 2004), 14. R.P. Vyas, “Rao MalDev (1532–1562), in History and Culture of Rajasthan, 251.

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figure 3.2 Chatrīs at Panch Kunda, the first Rathore chatrī bagh. Dating to approximately the mid-fifteenth to mid-sixteenth century, these are probably the earliest cenotaphs in Marwar

the dynasty had hostile relations with the early sultanates and did not ally with any Indo-Islamic power until being forced to do so with the Mughals in the late-sixteenth century. If Garrick is correct in his assertion that the oldest extant chatrī in Panch Kunda memorializes Rao Chunda (and there is no evidence to the contrary), it would be significant, as Chunda was the Rathore king with whom Mandore’s previous rulers, the Mandore Pratiharas, forged an alliance and who secured the Junagarh Fort for his dynasty. It thus makes sense that Rao Kanha (r. 1424– 27), Chunda’s son and successor, would initiate the practice of constructing an architectural memorial for his father as a way to permanently associate ­Chunda and his line with the dynasty’s new capital. That these early Rathore memorials offer an architectural style associated with adversarial courts that practiced a different religion indicates that at this point in their history the Rathores did not assign Indo-Islamic political or religious meaning to this architectural typology. On the contrary, the funerary chatrī’s umbrella form was already embedded with the sacred and royal associations carried by the ephemeral umbrellas that crowned deities and rulers. Moreover, as the Rathores’ and ­other Rajputs’ new adversaries, the rising sultanates, were establishing their

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figure 3.3 Ruined temple at Panch Kunda

presence throughout north India with mosque and tomb building, it makes sense that the Rathores would respond by laying territorial claim to their own land through parallel commissions that complied with Hindu sectarian practice. What is problematic about Garrick’s survey, however, is his erroneous identification of the chatrī of Rao Ganga (r. 1515–32) (Fig. 3.3), which later sources uncritically accept.14 The structure that Garrick misidentifies is, in fact, a ruined temple, dating to the period of the Mandore Pratiharas’ occupation of the site. The structure rests on a base several feet in height. The vimāna (section in a temple including the garbha gṛha and tower) is no longer completely in situ (only about half of the śikhara remains), but its crenelated plan is perceptible, and decorative niches that originally enshrined sculptures punctuate the walls. The maṇḍapa and its superstructure are completely gone. The śikhara (tower) was most likely of the latina (smooth, with a curvilinear outline) type, as this was most popular Maha-Maru style, and the maṇḍapa open and pillared. These forms predominate in Osian temples of the early eighth to early ninth centuries (as exhibited by Surya I and II; Harihara I, II, and III; the Surya-Vishnu; and Vishnu). The maṇḍapa likely had a corbeled dome (as at the Harihara III, 14

Reu, Glories of Marwar. Singh, The House of Marwar.

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one of the few Pratihara temples at the site that retains this feature).15 The lower walls of the ruined structure at Panch Kunda are encrusted with highrelief panels offering scenes from Hindu mythology, genre scenes (particularly dancers and musicians), and a continuous band of kīrtimukha (“glorious face,” an apotropaic and decorative feature common to Hindu temples). The structure’s advanced state of ruin makes assigning a precise date on stylistic or formal grounds impossible. What remains indicates that it was constructed in the regional Maha-Maru style.16 Three critical facts indicate that the structure Garrick identifies as the Rathores’ first cenotaph is in fact a ruined Mandore Pratihara temple: First, the structure and the friezes offer a far more advanced state of ruin than the nearby early Rathore chatrīs. More than simply having suffered from the ravages of time, the structure shows clear signs of intentional defacement, with all the figures’ faces appearing to have been punctiliously chiseled away. Sultanate troops may have engaged in such acts of vandalism during their occupations of Mandore in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as they did during their occupation of other sites throughout Rajasthan.17 Second, a stylistic comparison between the temple’s form and friezes and ruins at the Mandore Pratiharas’ nearby Junagarh Fort indicates that they are contemporaneous and thus suggest a Pratihara, and not later Rathore, genesis. Furthermore, ruins in the fort also present comparable signs of weathering and vandalism, again suggesting that these structures are contemporaneous. The third piece of evidence supporting the identification of this ruined structure as a Pratihara temple, and not a Rathore memorial—and one more germane to a consideration of the messages the Rathore patrons hoped to convey through their own cenotaph commissions—is that the Rathores Developed the deval-style memorials at a specific historical moment, in response to political events, and that moment did not transpire until the late-sixteenth century. 15 16

17

See Packert Atherton, ibid, for images of these temples. Maha-Maru is the term M.A. Dhaky Devised for the Pratihara sacred architectural style of northern Rajasthan, which evolved from the earlier Gupta and Vakataka traditions. The name derives from the region in which the style prevailed: Marwar (Marudesha or Marumandala, as it was known under Pratihara rule. The idiom was also prevalent in the Sambhar area to the east (“The Genesis and Development of Maru-Gurjara,” 120). Although he does not discuss the ruins at Mandore, Dhaky’s map, which offers a distribution of different architectural styles in western India, indicates that Mandore is a site were the MahaMaru style of architecture prevailed (ibid., 119). For example, the Khilji sultanate occupied Mandore from 1292 to 1395. It is important to reiterate that in many cases, temple desecration in pre-colonial India was as informed as much by politics as religion (in particular see Eaton, ibid).

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figure 3.4 Deval of Rao Maldev Jodha Rathore at Mandore, commissioned by Rao Udai Singh in 1583

The first Rathore deval inaugurated the dynasty’s second necropolis (now popularly referred to as the Mandore Gardens), nearly a half mile from Panch Kunda (Fig. 3.4). The structure commemorates Rao Maldev and was commissioned by his son and eventual successor, Rājā Udai Singh.18 In form and decoration, Maldev’s deval is clearly rooted in the Maha-Maru Pratihara sacred architectural idiom. The maṇḍapa and the antarala (antechamber between the garbha gṛiha and the maṇḍapa) are no longer in situ. However, the remaining features of the deval—plinth and vimāna, with its śekharī style śikhara, crenelated plan, and decorative niches—are formally reminiscent of Pratihara temples in 18

Each of the Jodha Rathore devals contains an inscribed marble plaque that offers the regnal dates of the commemorated king and name of the patron.

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figure 3.5 Chatrī of Udai Singh, Mandore

the region, although not an exact copy of any known structure.19 While the majority of the extant Maha-Maru temples possess a latina-style śikhara, notable examples, such as the Kalika Mata temple at Chittorgarh (date unknown) and the Mahavira Jain temple at Osian (dateable to the third quarter of the eighth century), offer the śekharī type.20 Although the maṇḍapa of Maldev’s deval is no longer present, we may look to the devals adjacent to it—commemorating Udai Singh (Fig. 3.5), Suraj Singh (r. 1595–1619) and Gaj Singh I (r. 1619–38)—to determine how Maldev’s cenotaph originally looked. These three structures are each progressively larger, with the uraḥśṛṅgas (ornamental towers that ring the main tower) more pronounced over time, although their forms and layouts are consistent. Their maṇḍapas are preceded by an ardha maṇḍapa (porch), the walls of which are open. The courses of the corbeled domes of the maṇḍapas and ardha maṇḍapas are carved in high relief with a central padmaśilā (pendant ornament in the form of a lotus bud). The domes are supported by polygonally planned pillars carved with kīrtimukhas and ghaṇṭamālā bells, as in northwest Indian medieval Hindu and Jain 19 20

The corpus of extant Pratihara temples exhibit remarkable variety in their plans, forms, and sculptural style and subjects. Abundant varieties are present at Osian alone. Dhaky, “The Genesis and Development of Maru-Gurjara”, 153, 162.

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temples. These are all features associated with the local Pratihara style. Udai Singh’s architects and stone masons culled from the cache of ruined Pratihara temples (such as the one Garrick misidentifies as Rao Ganga’s cenotaph and others in Junagarh Fort and perhaps Osian) to deceptively suggest that the Jodha Rathores had similarly appropriated that dynasty’s ethic of resistance to and protection from foreign rule.21 Udai Singh had an additional, more personal, reason to memorialize his father through a cenotaph whose exceptional, politically charged, and sacred form aggrandized his memory. Like the Kachhwaha kings Ishwari Singh and Man Singh II, Udai Singh’s path to power was circuitous and marred by political controversy. Therefore, also like those Kachhwaha kings, Udai Singh sought to unequivocally establish himself as his father’s heir. He responded to legitimacy concerns that arose from his allegiance with the Mughals and the fact that he was not his father’s choice of successor through the renaissant style of his father’s deval. Rao Maldev was acknowledged both in his own time and in later Rajput and Indo-Islamic sources as one of the most accomplished Rajput rulers; he was an exemplary statesman, military commander, and architectural patron. The Persian historian Firishta,22 Maldev’s younger contemporary who served at the Deccani court of Bijapur, and Abu al-Fazal,23 in his Akbarnāma, laud him as the most powerful ruler in Hindustan. Maldev brought his state to the zenith of its power and expanded its borders to encompass more territory than any ruler before or after him. By regaining the territories of Jalore and Nagaur from Pathan occupation, and subsequently restoring Hindu rule and abolishing the ­jizya tax there, as well as by fighting the Afghan king Sher Shah Suri in 1543,

21

22 23

Meister asserts that Rajput memorials built from the sixteenth century onward owe a stylistic debt to Rāṇā Kumbha’s revival of the Maru-Gurjara style of sacred architecture that was developed in southern Rajasthan and northern Gujarat in the eleventh century, specifically citing those at Mandore as an example (“Art Regions,” 166). However, this is only partially correct. Diachronic stylistic comparison between the first four devals and the last two, which date to the first half of the eighteenth century, reveal significant differences in their decorative and formal programs, and divergent sources of influence. As will be examined in the following chapter, for politically motivated reasons, the Jodha Rathores only appropriated Kumbha’s Maru-Gurjara renaissant style in the eighteenth century. Mohamed Kasim Firishta, History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India til the Year ad 1612, vol. II, trans. John Briggs ( Calcutta: S. Dey, 1966), 58. The Akbarnama of Abu-L-Fazl, trans. Henry Beveridge (Delhi: Low Prince Publications, reprint 2010), 305.

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Maldev established himself as a paradigm of dharmik Rajput kingship.24 The deval Udai Singh commissioned for his father appropriately references the lieu de mémoire of Pratihara temples and that dynasty’s autonomous past that Maldev similarly cultivated. Like the Kachhwaha mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II would do nearly two centuries later, Rao Maldev broke with the Rajput convention of primogeniture and bequeathed his kingdom to his third son, Chandrasen (1562–5). Maldev refused to ally with either the Suri sultanate or the Mughals after Humayun regained control of north India in 1555. Chandrasen continued his father’s policy of resistance and hostile relations with the ruling Muslim powers. He doggedly safeguarded Marwar’s independence and defended his kingdom for nearly two decades against relentless Mughal attacks. Following Chandrasen’s death, Marwar passed to three of his sons in succession, each of whose tenure was short lived. Finally, in 1583, promoted by Emperor Akbar, Udai Singh, Chandra Sen’s older brother and Maldev’s fifth son, became ruler of Marwar. In contrast to the foreign policies of his father, younger brother, and nephews, Udai Singh courted alliances with the Mughals. After being passed over as his father’s successor, Udai Singh joined the imperial service, and his success in Akbar’s employ earned him land grants and prestigious titles in the Mughal court.25 When the Jodha Rathore throne was left vacant, it is not surprising that Akbar installed his ally as ruler of the kingdom that had resisted him and the sultanates before him for so long. When Udai Singh became ruler of Marwar, he inaugurated a new era of Mughal-­ Rathore relations, which he consolidated by offering Akbar his sister, Jagat Gosain (popularly known as Jodha Bai), in marriage and his daughter, Man Bai, to Prince Salim, the future emperor Jahangir.26 After assuming the throne of Marwar, Udai Singh continued to reap the benefits of imperial favor; he was granted wealth and lands that the Mughal army annexed from his brother. By the time of his death, he was a manṣabdār (commander) of fifteen hundred troops. As a token of this imperial esteem and reflection of the Rathores’ new position within the Mughal Empire, Udai Singh was granted the title of rājā, which he

24 25

26

Reu, Glories of Marwar, xx–xxiii. Singh, “The Age of Invaders,” in The House of Marwar. Udai Singh appears to have grappled with his submission to the Mughals; he offered, retracted, then re-offered Akbar the customary peshkash, a monetary offering signifying allegiance (Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 533). Ahsan Raza, Chieftains in the Mughal Empire during the Reign of Akbar (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1977): 115. Man Bai was the mother of the emperor Shah Jahan (Beveridge, trans., The Akbarnama, vol. III, 921, n. 2.

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shared with his contemporary, the similarly pro-Mughal Rajput ruler Man Singh of Amber. History does not record the Marwar nobles’ true sentiments regarding their new pro-Mughal king. Sources do, however, suggest that there was a strong anti-Udai cabal in his own court.27 Succeeding in turn his father, one of Marwar’s greatest kings, younger brother, and nephews, whose rules were defined by their staunch dedication to their kingdom’s autonomy, Udai Singh certainly had large shoes to fill. History credits him with an additional embarrassment. By allying with the Mughals and offering royal Rathore women to them in marriage, Udai Singh sacrificed his dynasty’s favor with the Sisodias of Mewar, who from that point until the mid-eighteenth century refused to enter into marital alliances with them.28 The Sisodias’ unwillingness to marry their daughters to Jodha Rathore men indicates that they considered the Jodha Rathores’ honor and dharm compromised, and thus no longer their social equals.29 Within the Jodha Rathores’ newly forged Mughal alliance—and again like Rājā Man Singh of Amber—Udai Singh and two generations of his successors were obliged to construct a pair of conflicting public identities to placate two disparate audiences: one as manṣabdār to their overlord, the Mughal emperor; the other as dharmik Kshatriya ruler to their Marwari subjects. Udai Singh addressed the latter community through the deval-style chatrī he commissioned for his father, Maldev, which allowed him to associate both his father and ­himself with the Pratiharas. If this was Udai Singh’s intention, it was a savvy, politically motivated appropriation of the past. The Gurjara Pratiharas had success­­fully defended their territories from Arab incursions, and Maldev defended much of the same land against Suri and Mughal expansions. Udai Singh began his service at the Mughal court in 1570, the very year that Akbar’s tomb for his father, Humayun, was completed in Delhi. As the new head of a dynasty not yet securely established in its Indic hegemony, Akbar was compelled to locate his rule in both the wider Islamic and local contexts. As noted in chapter 1, Akbar attempted to announce his legitimacy through the form, decoration, and building material of Humayun’s tomb. 27 28 29

Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 58. Singh, House of Marwar. Another probable reason the Sisodias severed marital ties with them was that in Mughal service, the Jodha Rathores also sent troops and personally fought against the Sisodias (Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 58). That the two dynasties no longer intermarried and were intermittently engaged in battle, also explains why, between the late-sixteenth and late-seventeenth centuries, the Jodha Rathores did not refer specifically to the Sisodias in their memorials by appropriating the Maru-Gurjara renaissant style, which was associated with them.

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Having served as a member of the Mughal court for so many years, Udai Singh would certainly have appreciated how funerary memorials could be exploited to announce their patrons’ legitimacy and assist them in shaping their public identities. He apparently learned well from his imperial ally. An inscription in Maldev’s deval informs us that it was begun in 1583, the year Akbar placed Udai Singh on the throne. The fact that he began his father’s memorial immediately after taking the reins of state indicates Udai Singh’s perceived need to advertise his descent from Maldev, the accomplished, heroic, dharmik king. Also noted in chapter 1, other Rajput kings, such as Rājā Man Singh of Amber, would also undoubtedly have seen Humayun’s tomb and would have been similarly versant in the potential legitimizing properties of funerary memorials, thereby broadening the audience to whom Udai could communicate his legitimizing messages. It was fortuitous for Udai Singh that none of Maldev’s previous successors had commissioned his memorial. That legitimacyconferring act was thus ripe for him to exploit. In fashioning funerary memorials for their fathers, Akbar and Udai Singh looked to the built environments of their respective pasts and selected specific lieux de memoire to reference their illustrious lineages and, by extension, to announce their own political legitimacy. Both Akbar’s and Udai Singh’s commissions may be understood in relation to the concept of “restorative nostalgia,” which Svetlana Boym defines as cultural memory that glorifies a specific past. Boym asserts that selective versions of the past may be politically manipulated through newly recreated practices of national commemoration with the aim of reestablishing social cohesion and a sense of an obedient relationship to authority. Thus, restorative nostalgia may assuage a perceived erosion of communal identity and unity.30 Udai Singh would certainly have perceived such a threat to Jodha Rathore identity, and surely he considered the restoration of that communal pride a means to establish his rule. However, there is a fundamental difference between the restorative nostalgia evident in Akbar’s and Udai Singh’s memorial commissions: unlike the Mughal example, in the Jodha Rathore example the restorative nostalgia is not drawn from the Rathores’ own past but someone else’s. Maldev’s deval refers to the Pratihara past and references an era when there was a markedly different balance of power on the north Indian political stage. 30

Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 42.

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If the Rathores are descended from the Rashtrakutas, why did Udai Singh appropriate from the Pratiharas’ built environment and not from that of his own ancestors? The Rashtrakuta lineage was just as eminent as the Pratihara, and the Rathores own dynastic past offered an extensive cache of monuments from which to draw. Furthermore, the Pratiharas and the Rashtrakutas were constantly at war, particularly over the imperial city of Kannauj. As architectural patrons, the Rashtrakutas are best known for their monumental eighth-century Kailashnatha temple at Ellora, which although no longer a site of worship, remains one of the largest temples in India. That Ellora is located a great distance from Marwar and that the Kailashnatha temple was built several centuries before Udai Singh’s reign were probably not the primary factors that led him to ignore this monumental Rashtrakuta temple as the model for his father’s memorial. After all, nearly two centuries separates the Gur-i Mir from Humayun’s tomb, and the distance between Samarqand and Delhi is far greater than that between Ellora and Mandore. For his father’s deval, Udai Singh overlooked an architectural style that referred to the Rathores’ Rashtrakuta past in favor of one that unequivocally alluded to the Pratiharas, and did so for specific, politically motivated reasons. Udai Singh’s appropriation of the Pratihara Maha-Maru-temple lieu de mémoire indicates his attempt to associate his father and himself with a dynasty that perfectly fulfilled the tenets of dharmik Rajput kingship. Much of the Pratiharas’ rule was characterized by the safeguarding of their subjects, religion, and land from foreign forces. Recall that, conversely, the Rashtrakutas cultivated alliances with certain foreign groups, among them were those who shared a religion with the Jodha Rathores’ historic adversaries. In Udai Singh’s eyes this would likely disqualify the Rastracutras as a worthy paradigm. Boym argues that one of the salient reasons a person or community becomes nostalgic for a particular past is that they aspire to create a future that is a renaissance of that past, even if their idealized notion of it is distorted or imagined. In this longing for a particular past, objects from that time are treated as talismans, proof that a particular set of circumstances once were and may be again.31 Similarly, Udai Singh seems to have viewed the Pratihara temples as highly significant sites of memory that were not just vestiges of a golden age but evocations of what might be for an independent Marwar—a future he sought to present to his Marwari subjects.

31

Boym, The Future of Nostalgia, 41. See also Christopher Shaw and Malcolm Chase, “The Dimensions of Nostalgia,” in The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia, ed. Christopher Shaw and Malcolm Chase (Manchester: Manchester University, 1989).

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The Pratihara Maha-Maru style of sacred architecture was not the only one available to Udai Singh for his father’s deval. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were periods of great architectural innovation in north India, and many of those innovations were based on reinterpretations and fusions of older temple and contemporaneous Mughal forms. As noted in chapter 1, Udai Singh’s contemporary Rajput ruler Rājā Man Singh of Amber appropriated from both the western Indian Maru-Gurjara temple and contemporaneous Mughal traditions to create a hybrid form and decoration for his Jagat Shiromani temple in Amber. The Bundela rājā Bir Singh Deo also appropriated from Mughal buildings for his Chaturbhuj temple in Orchha. These two Rajput kings displayed imperial idioms to announce their support of and privilege under the empire, their cosmopolitanism, and their familiarity with the contemporary imperial aesthetic. Quite dissimilar to Man Singh and Bir Singh Deo—as Dhaky32 and Meister33 have explored—Rāṇā Kumbha of Mewar (r. 1433–68) patronized a revival of the Maru-Gurjara style of western Indian temple architecture to publicly define himself and his dynasty, the Sisodias, as uncompromisingly independent when they faced threats of invasion from various sultanates.34 Dhaky terms Rāṇā Kumbha’s fifteenth-century revival of this style the “Maru-Gurjara renais­ sance.”35 Kumbha’s Maru-Gurjara style possesses intertextual relationships with numerous other styles. The dynasties whose styles were appropriated to create it, and were thus associated with it, are varied: the Guptas, the Pratiharas, and the Solankis of Gujarat.36 It cannot be coincidental that Rāṇā Kumbha, whose rule was largely preoccupied with threats from sultanate invasions, fostered an architectural revival that was so deeply associated with these martial Hindu dynasties that either ruled before the Islamic period or are remembered for their resistance to Indo-Islamic powers. However, it is important to note that while the Maru-Gurjara renaissant style consciously appropriates certain features from Maru-Gurjara temples, it does not copy earlier structures wholesale. Rather, key features were selected and creatively reinterpreted and 32 33 34

35 36

Dhaky, “Renaissance and the Late Maru-Gurjara Temple Architecture.” Meister, “Art Regions,” 166. Dhaky refers to the dominant architectural style of western India, which flourished between the eleventh to thirteenth centuries and was a fusion of the earlier northern Rajasthani Maha-Maru and southern Rajasthani–northern Gujarati (Maha-Gurjara) styles as “Maru-Gurjara,” a classification that has been widely accepted by later scholars of Indian architecture (“The Genesis and Development of Maru-Gurjara”; “Renaissance and the Late Maru-Gurjara Temple Architecture”). “Renaissance and the Late Maru-Gurjara Temple Architecture,” 4–5. Ibid.

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reworked. Thus, temples built from the fifteenth century onward in this renais­ sant style, are easily distinguishable from those in the parent style. Although Udai Singh shared Rājā Man Singh’s and Bir Singh Deo’s elite status in Akbar’s court, he opted for an architectural style that by the late-sixteenth century would have appeared provincial and outdated to a Rajput audience familiar with the latest imperial commissions. That he nevertheless appropriated a Pratihara Maha-Maru style for his father’s memorial, which is devoid of references to any Indo-Islamic architectural tradition, indicates that he, like Rāṇā Kumbha, considered particular archaized styles meaningful and appropriate to the public identity he sought to convey. Through an architectural style innately associated with the Pratiharas, Udai Singh announced his identification with that dynasty and its ethic of protection and commitment to the Rajput dharm. The inherent paradox, however, is that in marked contrast to Rāṇā Kumbha’s refusal to ally with the sultanates, Udai Singh commissioned his father’s deval and promoted this public identity at the very historical moment when he had severely compromised the Rathores’ Rajput dharm by his politically advantageous alliance with Akbar, a non-Rajput. Boym asserts that restorative nostalgia is informed by a sense of persecution or conspiracy, which creates imagined communities distinct from hostile outsiders.37 Maldev’s chatrī accomplishes this at the very moment when the Jodha Rathores were aligning with forces who were conveniently of the same religious community the Pratiharas fought. It is important to stress that beyond religion, these two groups had little, if anything in common, separated as they were by time, ethnicity, and language. However, I do not suggest that Udai Singh or his predecessors objected to Mughal rule on religious grounds; their reluctance was political. The Pratihara renaissant style of Maldev’s chatrī was an attempt to recoup Rathore pride by eliding Indo-Islamic cultural and political association, associating the dynasty instead with the Pratihara past, which informed Udai’s (fabricated) present. It is fitting to understand Udai Singh’s deceptive adoption of the Pratihara architectural idiom and, by extension, public identity in relation to the semiotic definition of appropriation outlined by Robert S. Nelson (see n. 4 in the introduction). The Rathores’ devals represent their patrons’ conscious, politically motivated attempt to fashion their public identity after the Pratiharas. In accordance with Nelson’s criteria, the original sign (temple) has been distorted in its new context. Udai Singh transformed the sign into a funerary memorial, which adds another layer of metonomy to the original signified of Hindu religion, communal identity, and dharmik fulfillment—that of Rathore legitimacy 37

Boym, The Future of Nostalgia, 43–44.

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and commitment to these same ideals. Perhaps most significantly, while the umbrella form of the typical deval establishes the extraordinary status of the memorialized, the sacred form of Malvev’s deval equates him with the divine. These associations would have extended to the Jodha Rathore dynasty and Udai Singh, Maldev’s son and patron of the memorial. A few years before the construction of Maldev’s deval, another Rajput king, Madhukarshah Bundela of Orcha (r. 1554–1591) commissioned his court poet Keshavdas to write the historical panegyric, the Ratnābhavanī. The epic poem offers an intriguing point of comparison to the deval. The patrons of both had fraught relations with Emperor Akbar and their respective commissions allowed them, as Heidi Pauwels asserts in relation to Madhukarshah’s religious activities and poetry to: “… take his distance from the court and talk back to the empire.”38 Madhukarshah had a particularly tumultuous relationship with the Mughals, resisting and allying with them in turns. Pauwels39 and Allison Busch40 examine how the Ratnābhavanī, written shortly after the Bundelas finally capitulated to the Mughals, ameliorates their devastating decisive defeat of 1577– 8. Through Keshavdas, Madhukarshah “talks back” to Akbar, who recorded the conquest in his Akbarnama, offering an alternative version of events, in which the Bundelas are cast not as, “… losers to be ridiculed, but fighters for dharma.”41 Keshavdas’ poem lauds Madhukar and his fourth son, Ratnasena, who died in the battle, presenting them as honorable, brave, and devout exemplars of their Kshatrya dharm, and Akbar as an arrogant aggressor. Thus, for Rajput kings such as Udai Singh and Madhukarshah who wore their two hats uncomfortably and wrestled with the dual identities they were compelled to adopt, art of various media offered a fantastic space, a Rajput heterotopia, where they could “talk back” to the empire from a safe distance. In the case of Maldev’s deval and Madhukarshah’s Ratnābhavanī, history does not record if the emperor heard. Incidentally, Madhukarshah’s sixth son and later successor was of course Bir Singh Deo, who enthusiastically supported the Mughals under Jahangir. The decisive shift in Bundela-Mughal relations under Bir Singh Deo greatly impact-

38 39 40

41

“The Saint, the Warlord, and the Emperor: Discourses of Braj Bhakti and Bundelā Loyalty,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 52, no. 2 (2009): 223. Ibid. “Literary Responses to the Mughal Imperium: The Historical Poems of Keśavdās,” South Asia Research 25, no. 1 (May, 2005): 31–54; Poetry of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 23–32. See Rothfarb, Orcha and Beyond on Mughal influences on Bundela architecture. Pauwels, ibid., 200.

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ed Bundela architecture and literature.42 As with Maldev and Udai Singh, the contradictory relations of Madhukarshah and Bir Singh Deo with the Mughals illustrates how quickly and decisively a Rajput dynasty’s foreign policy could change, and how this shaped their art.

The Mandore Devals and Marwari Public Pitrs

The form of Maldev’s deval refers to the Pratihara past, which informed Udai’s restorative nostalgia. It should not be forgotten that both the architectural form and semantic content of the deval are inherently sacred: it shares the form of, and word for, a temple. Name and typology confer an additional layer of Hindu sacrality, which although altered somewhat through the process of appropriation doubtlessly retained traces of its original signified when Udai Singh transformed the deval from an exclusively religious structure into a funerary one. Udai Singh’s appropriation of this architectural form therefore suggests a dimension to his program of political propaganda beyond simply crafting a public identity rooted in the Pratiharas’ dharmik ethos. If Maldev’s and the later kings’ devals were intended to formally evoke a temple and function as such, it may explain the śekharī style of the śikharas. Although the latina was the prevailing, but not only, style for Maha-Maru temples, by the time of the construction of Maldev’s deval, Rajput rulers almost exclusively favored the śekharī style for their temple spires, establishing that particular style of tower as a synecdoche for “Hindu temple.”43 The presence of features in Maldev’s and the other Rathores’ devals that relate to sacred or ritualistic functions in a Hindu temple shed further light on Udai Singh’s intended meaning and the function of his commission. These features include a relief carving of the Hindu god Ganesh on the lintel of the entrance to the garbha gṛha and a praṇāla (ablution channel) leading from the garbha gṛha to the deval’s exterior (Fig. 3.6). Iconic images of Ganesh are not exclusive to Hindu sacred spaces (they are often found above entrances to homes and business). However, they are a requisite feature in Hindu temples, and within the context of Hinduism the image functions as an index that connotes sacred space. In terms of the chatrīs (as will be examined further in chapter 5, in relation to a specific Bika Rathore chatrī in Bikaner), iconic images of Ganesh are only found in funerary me42

43

For more on Mughal influence on Keshavdas’ poetry during the rules of Rājā Ram Singh (Madhukarshah’s eldest son and first successor) and Bir Singh Deo, see Busch, The Poetry of Kings, 32–61. Adam Hardy, “Sekhari Temples,” Artibus Asiae 62, no. 1 (2002): 82.

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figure 3.6 Lintel in front of the garbha gṛha of Rao Maldev’s deval with an image of Ganesh

morials that have a sacred dimension; that is, those that fulfill a function beyond the purely commemorative. In this category of “sacred” chatrīs are included those that commemorate the deified deceased and those functioning concomitantly as temples to a Hindu deity. Chatrīs that are strictly “secular” memorials, where worship and religious ceremonies are not performed, do not offer iconic images of Ganesh. The distinction between what I refer to as an iconic representation of Ganesh, typically enthroned and static, as opposed to images of this god in a procession or in a narrative sequence—which appear in many secular chatrīs—is an important one. While most Hindus would consider any image of a Hindu deity sacred, only particular images are regarded as mūrtis to be used in worship, and they, whether in sculpted or painted form, nearly always depict the god in an iconic, static posture.44 44

Samuel K. Parker draws a clear distinction between mūrtis enshrined within Hindu temples and images of the divine that decorate these structures, noting that the latter are not worshipped. Although Parker focuses his study on south Indian temples, his distinctions echo the point I make between images of Gaṇeś in funerary memorials that are sacred as opposed to decorative, particularly in active postures (“The Matter of Value Inside and Out: Aesthetic Categories in Contemporary Hindu Temple Art,” Ars Orientalis 22 (1992): 98–99).

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While images of the divine may have dual sacred and decorative functions, depending on the context and manner in which they are rendered, praṇālas are inherently functional features indexing sacrality. In temples they funnel abiśek (sacralized pāñcāmṛta), used in the worship of the mūrtis, from the garbha gṛha in which the mūrti is enshrined to the exterior of the temple, where it collects in a tank.45 In the few chatrīs in which they feature, the channels manifest as small, unadorned grooves on the pāliyās. The pāliyās are libated with pāñcāmṛta on holidays associated with ancestors or on the death anniversary of the commemorated. In a temple-chatrī, such as Ishwari Singh’s in Jaipur, the pāliyā is libated daily and whenever a devotee patronizes a pūjā (ceremony of worship) to him to request his intercession. The presence of a praṇāla, in conjunction with the iconic image of Ganesh, indicates that Rājā Udai Singh intended his father’s memorial to appear at least in form and decoration as more than a space for purely secular commemoration. Perhaps something inside was lustrated or the praṇāla was a synochde, the presence of which signifies a temple and sacrality, here, of Maldev. This is a memorial befitting a figure that was exceptional in both life and death. As argued throughout this study, it is the chatrī patron rather than the person commemorated, who constructs the latter’s posthumous identity through the formal and decorative program of the memorial. Thus, form and decoration reveal more about the identity of the patron than they do about his father. What, we can therefore ask, did Udai Singh intend for his father, Rao Maldev, after his death and how did he personally hope to benefit from this? Neither Maldev’s nor the other devals at Mandore offer clues to this enigma. They, like all the chatrīs at Panch Kunda, are empty—they shelter neither devalīs nor pāliyās. Udai Singh probably never intended his father to be conceived of as any sort of deity. As discussed in the introduction, this is a designation largely restricted, for practical reasons, to lower-ranking Rajputs. To present Rao Maldev as divine would have posthumously demoted him by suggesting that he was not a king (as argued in relation to Ishwari Singh in chapter 1). This would certainly not have served Udai Singh’s political agenda. Moreover, Maldev died of natural causes. He was not martyred, nor did he die as a result of an accident or commit suicide, and thus he did not meet any of the prerequisites for a Rajput posthumous divine transformation.46 45

46

Pāñcāmṛta libations consist of five śūd (ritually pure) liquids: milk, yogurt, honey, sugar, and ghee. After bathing the image in it, in the form of its mūrti, the libation is sacralized and referred to as abiśek. Sources are silent on how MalDev died, indicating that it was due to natural causes. It is certain that he did not die on the battlefield (an ideal Rajput death). The last Jodha

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Maldev’s deval commemorates a different type of extraordinary deceased: an exalted pitr. To his son, Maldev, of course literally was a pitr. And, to the people of Marwar, for whom he had been an exceptionally dharmik and beloved king, he became after his death their highly esteemed (symbolic) ancestor and is, like many other Rajput kings, commemorated as a public ancestor. Udai’s introduction of the deval-style memorial appears to reflect his intention to promote his father as an especially venerable public pitr who achieved something of a superhuman status after his death: a quasi-divinity, but not truly a god like Ishwari Singh. In stressing Maldev’s symbolic familial relationship to his subjects, as well as his quasi-sacred posthumous status, Udai Singh reaffirmed that he was, as the new king and patron of the deval, heir to this position and thus bapjī to the people of Marwar. Again, in crafting a posthumous identity for his father through a cenotaph, a Rajput king essentially fashioned his own public identity. The message the overwhelming majority of chatrīs conveys is: I am descended from this capable ruler and thus his worthy heir. Rulers such as Madho Singh II and Udai Singh proclaimed their own legitimacy by announcing their fathers’ greatness through their memorial commissions. To promote Maldev as an exceptional pitr was both politically astute on Udai’s part, as it served to bolster his own political position, and socially appropriate to his father’s memory. To clarify what exactly Maldev was considered to have become after his death or, rather, how Udai Singh fashioned his father’s posthumous identity and promoted it through the temple form of the Pratihara-style deval, we must revisit the issue of Mandore’s empty devals. The subject is perplexing for two reasons. First, the Mandore devals represent some of the largest and most elaborate examples of Rajput funerary architecture. Their empty interiors seem incongruous with their exteriors. Second, as noted above, the devals’ forms and certain features indicate that if not exactly deified, Maldev and his successors were at least promoted as extraordinary and likely honored as such through elaborate commemorative performances. If the interiors of the devals are empty, to what or whom, exactly, were the commemorative rituals directed? In Rajput funerary traditions, the architectural structure demarcates, whether it is a temple-style deval or more typical chatrī, commemorative and/ or sacred space. The structure is a frame or vessel. But the structure itself does not represent the deceased. Recall, as explained in the introduction, that ­memorial devalīs predate the chatrīs. Archaeological evidence indicates that these represented the deceased several centuries before they were ever enRathore king to die on the battlefield—the most honorable death for a Rajput—was Rao Satal, in 1492.

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shrined within a chatrī. Moreover, recall that a chatrī is not “active” or functional as a memorial until the installation of the pāliyā or devalī during the pūjā inauguration ceremony. Thus Maldev’s and the other Mandore devals must have been constructed to accommodate something. My nonroyal Rajput informants in and around Jodhpur, many of whose ancestors are worshipped as some sort of devtā, as well as local priests and hereditary stone carvers whose ancestors have constructed royal and nonroyal chatrīs in Marwar for generations, all adamantly insisted that funerary steles with figural images of the deceased indicate that the person commemorated was posthumously transformed into a devtā.47 In Marwar Rajputs who have not become a devtā after their death are represented in their memorials by a pāliyā with a pair of footprints in relief. This practice of distinguishing the posthumous status of the person commemorated through the presence or absence of figural representations in their memorials appears particular to Marwar. To Marwari Rajputs, these two signs (devalī with a mounted warrior and pāliyā with footprints) can signify nothing else but martial folk deity or pitr, respectively.48 Rajput funerary arts are to a great extent dynasty specific. While the sign and its signifiers may remain consistent, the signified is often specific to the region or kingdom. For example, the nonmartial kings of Bikaner, who are also Rathore Rajputs, are all commemorated through devalīs on which they are depicted figuratively. In Marwar, devalīs offer the icon of a mounted warrior and his satī or satīs. After the devalīs are carved by stonemasons, a Brahmin priest performs a thān thapna ceremony to “call in” the spirit of the divine deceased and invite it to inhabit the image. If this ceremony is not performed, the image will remain an empty vessel. This is highly dangerous, as any spirit (most shockingly, to my Rajput informants, even that of a non-Rajput!) is able to enter into the image and use it as a medium to potentially work evil while masquerading as the spirit of the person commemorated. As one of my Jodha Rathore informants explained, to skip the thān thapna, is to invite trouble: “Rather than filling it [the image] with āmrit [nectar], it is like you are filling it with zahir [poison]!” 47

48

Among my informants was Ashok Makrud, hereditary stonemason (sutradār) to the royal family of Jodhpur (interview, August 11, 2006). His ancestors constructed Umaid Bhawan, the new royal palace, and all the royal chatrīs at the new Jodhpur necropolis of Jaswant Thara. Recall, however, that Rao Sheo is commemorated through a devalī bearing a relief of the king and his satī, which surmounts his chabūtrā. The figural depiction of a Jodha Rathore king in his memorial may be explained by the fact that, in all likelihood, he was considered to have been posthumously transformed into a devtā. After all, he died an exemplary death, on the battlefield, thereby fulfilling his Rajput dharm.

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Furthermore, the spirit of the deceased must possess sufficient strength to be represented through an anthropomorphic image on a devalī. If not, it will be unable to fend off the “poison” (malevolent spirits) that might enter into the image and influence the living despite the performance of the thān thapna. Only the deified deceased, whose acts of martyrdom evinced posthumous deification in the first place, are considered to possess sufficient strength, and, again, after the eighteenth century such spirits were rarely Rajput kings in life. Maldev and his descendants were thus certainly not depicted on devalīs in their cenotaphs. My informants in Jodhpur noted that the danger of representing the deceased figuratively only extended to carved images on devalīs, and explained that it was not problematic to depict them in paintings or photographs in their memorials. In the later Jodha Rathore memorials at Mandore and Jodhpur, the royal deceased is represented either by a pāliyā or by a pair of pādukā (wooden sandals), and sometimes by a painting or photograph, placed on a gaddī (low wooden throne) covered in saffron-colored cloth. Nothing suggests that the latter is not how Maldev and his descendants, who are commemorated by the now-empty devals at Mandore, were signified. Every year throughout Rajasthan, on the death anniversary of the deceased, the pāliyās are washed with pāñcāmṛta. When this is performed for a former king, the affusion is referred to as a rājābiṣek, the same name used for the king’s affusion ceremony at his installation.49 That this commemorative ceremony evokes a royal installation ceremony is not incidental. The annual performance of a late king’s rājābiṣek reaffirms his status as a royal pitr. As a corollary, the living king, whose presence is conspicuous in this ritual performance, reaffirms his own royal lineage and political legitimacy. These ephemeral memorial installations in the later Jodha Rathore chatrīs are reminiscent of shrines memorializing Hindu saints: pādukās are worn almost exclusively by renunciants, and the kesriyā (saffron color) of the cloth is associated with Hindu asceticism. Such saints’ shrines, which are installed at their former residences, often where they “took samādhi,”50 allow generations of Devotees to “take darśan” with their deceased guru (spiritual teacher) through his pādukās, which are enthroned on a saffron-cloaked throne. That 49

50

Interview with Mahendra Singh Naggar, director of the Maharaja Mansingh Pustak Prakash Research Centre (library and research institute at Mehrangarh Fort). He is responsible for organizing royal events, such as the śrāddh and other memorial services for the Jodha Rathore royals (interview with author, February 28, 2006). Taking samādhi, also referred to as “(intentionally) leaving the body” is how a Hindu holy person’s death is honorifically described.

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the guru is signified by the pādukās is appropriate, as devotees touch a guru or other extraordinary person’s feet as a sign of respect and literally “sit at the feet” of a teacher to receive religious instruction. Less obvious, however, is the connection between king and saint. These two figures, Rajput king and Hindu saint, would appear to represent binary opposites: the former is a householder, martial, meat eating, alcohol drinking, and sexually active; while the latter has (typically) vowed to renounce the world, is celibate, does not drink, and is a strict vegetarian. However, as Phyllis Granoff has argued, Hindu kings and Hindu saints may not actually be quite so different.51 Granoff’s study of the mythological paradigms of saints and kings is rooted in Puranic and vernacular texts that suggest many similarities between these two figures: Hindu deities, including Vishnu and Shiva, for instance, are born as human saints or kings, to restore cosmic order, rid the world of sinners, or reinstate the “true” religion. Thus, according to these texts, king and saint are united through a shared socio-religious dharm that demands their dedication to defending the Hindu cultural and religious dharm. The king accomplishes this through political authority and force of arms, while the saint’s tools are words: discourse or, in some traditions, the mantrā (a magical formula). Significantly, in royal biographies the enemy the king battles is often referred to as mlecha, an-oft employed derogatory tag in India prior to the early modern period, which Granoff interprets as intentionally ambiguous, referring both to a “demon” and/or “outsider.”52 It therefore appears that despite their disparate lifestyles, the social roles, and in some cases the divine origins of, king and saint are parallel. To conflate the two figures through their funerary installations is thus logical. The shared objects—saffron-draped throne and pādukās— reference their shared dharm and extraordinary status.53 As shown in chapter 2 in connection with the Dadu Panthis, members of Hindu religious orders may convey their legitimacy and spiritual authority through the display of royal symbols of power. Aspects of visual vocabulary shared by kings and saints include thrones, fly whisks, fans, and umbrellas. ­Additionally, memorialization through a chatrī has traditionally been the exclusive prerogative of only two groups: Rajputs and Hindu and Jain saints 51 52 53

“Holy Warriors: A Preliminary Study of Some Biographies of Saints and Kings in the Classical Indian Tradition,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 12, no. 3 (1984): 291–303. In several of Granoff’s examples, these outsiders are explicitly identified as Muslim (“Holy Warriors,” 291–94). In Rajasthan, kesriyā is associated almost exclusively with two communities: Hindu renunciants, and Rajputs, who traditionally donned saffron-colored turbans when they rode out into an unwinnable battle, a practice known as śaka, signaling their own renunciation (of this world) and self-sacrifice for their religion, culture, and land.

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figure 3.7 Shrine of Sri Guru Anna Maharaj’s samādhī, in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh (date unknown). The saint gave spiritual discourses to his devotees and died in this room. The bed upon which he died is surmounted by an honorific umbrella and his khiradhu are on the bed.

(merchants appropriated the chatrī tradition much later, in the nineteenth century). The interior of Sri Guru Anna Maharaj’s samādhi54 and temple (date unknown) in Gwalior (Fig. 3.7), for example, although separated by time and space from the Mandore devals, demonstrates the common iconography of extraordinariness shared by royal and religious Hindu memorials. Anna Maharaj’s samādhi installation is typical of a shrine that commemorates the spot where a holy man once lived and later “took samādhi” The shrine is the 54

A Hindu saint’s memorial and shrine.

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physical locus of Anna Maharaj’s cult, where generations of his devotees have come to “take darśan” with the bed/throne where he gave discourse and the pādukās (shown on the bed). The installation is appropriately crowned by an umbrella. None of Granoff’s examples refers to early modern Rajasthani traditions. However, her textual references are numerous, and it is safe to assume that recognition of the king’s and saint’s shared social duties are, at least to an extent, pan-Hindu.55 The pādukās are polyvalent. In addition to referencing the exclusivity of these two communities (royal and renunciate), they, like dynastic portraits discussed in chapter 4 are indexical signs of the deceased and synecdoches of the dynasty’s unbroken lineage and Hindu kingship in general. In the Rāmāyaṇa, when the righteous and rightful king, Rama, is unjustly exiled from Ayodhya for fourteen years, his sandals are kept on his throne signifying his presence. Similarly, the pādukās on the gaddīs in the Mandore devals each signify an individual Jodha Rathore king, as well as his office, which is transferred through the generations. As in later Jodha Rathore memorials, Maldev’s deval probably initially housed a wooden throne draped in saffron-colored textiles upon which rested a pair of pādukās. That the Mandore devals originally enshrined a pair of wooden sandals on a gaddī covered in saffron textile is corroborated by a eyewitness account. In the late-nineteenth century, Garrick observed such an installation in the cenotaph of Mahārājā Bijay Singh (r. 1753–93). He notes that these objects represent the late king’s throne and rulership, and that he observed them being tended, with offerings and prostrations made before them.56 Recall that (as examined in the introduction) regardless of their social status in life, ancestors are only considered “active” or “accessible” for five to seven generations, after which they graduate to distant after-death planes, to heaven, or reincarnate, and ultimately become inaccessible to the living. Accordingly, it would have been superfluous to maintain Maldev’s deval beyond that span of time. The throne and pādukās were probably allowed to decay and eventually were removed. A series of official darbār memorandums details the thorough cleaning of the devals and removal of any debris in preparation for the

55

56

Joanne P. Waghorne’s analysis of the relationship between asceticism and kingship in Pudukkottai, south India, attests that this is indeed a phenomenon that existed throughout royal Hindu India. See The Raja’s Magic Clothes: Revisioning Kingship and Divinity in England’s India (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1994), particularly the chapters “The God on the Silver Throne” and “The Iconic Body of the King.” Ibid. 1887, 84.

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visit of the Prince of Wales in 1921.57 Today at Mandore the only memorials that retain a throne, and where the annual rājābiṣek is performed, are those of Mahārājās Man Singh (r. 1803–43) and Takht Singh (r. 1843–73), both of whom are still considered active ancestors accessible to the living.

Parallels in Seventeenth-Century Marwari Painting

As argued in the introduction, funerary architecture is semi-public and announces its messages of the patron’s legitimate political authority to a large audience of varied members. The more diminutive size of paintings, conversely, ensures that they are private, and indeed they were originally intended to be enjoyed by a small, select audience comprised largely of aristocrats. To a great extent, royal and aristocratic Marwari paintings from the first-half of the seventeenth century appear to provide further evidence of the Jodha Rathores’ variable and uncomfortable alliance with the Mughals. During that period, Marwari painting retained a strong indigenous northwest Indian style and subject matter. Rāgamālās (personifications of deified classical Indian songs) appear to have been the most popular subject. The style of the paintings was very much influenced by local Jain and early Rajput painting, in particular those of the Chaurapanchasika style, which developed in northwestern India in the early-sixteenth century. One of the best known examples of early Marwari painting is the Pali Rāgamālā group, commissioned by Gopal Dasji, ṭhākur of the ṭhikānā of Pali, and his son Bithal Das and painted by Pandit Virji in 1623 (Fig. 3.8). The pages’ horizontal format, blocks of pure color, flatness, and division of space by rudimentary architectural elements, as well as the figures’ execution in black outline, in strict profile, with exaggeratedly large eyes and sharp features, owe a debt to earlier indigenous western Indian painting schools. The paintings of the Pali Rāgamālā are almost completely devoid of Mughal influence.58 Rosemary Crill argues that Gopal Dasji and Bithal Das had ample exposure to imperial, as well as other past and contemporaneous, paintings and that the style and subject matter of their commission represent well-informed deci-

57 58

PWD, Mekmah Khas, Jaipur State Archives, file dated February 26, 1921, 42. Rosemary Crill, “Pre-Mughal Traditions,” in Marwar Painting: A History of the Jodhpur Style (Mumbai: India Book House, 2000), 16–32. Interestingly, the better known Chawand Rāgamālā painted in Merwar in 1605, when the Sisodias had accepted Mughal suzerainty, offers more pronounced Mughal influence (ibid., 21).

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figure 3.8 Kedara Ragini, Pali (Marwar), dated 1623. Collection of the late Sangram Singh Nawalgarh.

sions.59 Pali was a cosmopolitan center in Marwar and was well connected to major Indian cities through trade. Gopal Dasji was given Pali as a jagīr by Rājā Udai Singh, and Bithal Das served in the Mughal court and army, with the majority of his service under Jahangir. As a figure of high rank at the imperial court, it is likely that Bithal Das would have seen Akbar’s and Jahangir’s painting commissions. Several of the males in the Pali Rāgamālā paintings are dressed in the four-pointed chakdār jāmā that was popularized under Akbar. The patrons of the Pali Rāgamālā were therefore clearly familiar with imperial dress and painting trends. That their commission almost entirely eschews Mughal influence in favor of an archaized indigenous painting style suggests that the paintings of the Pali Rāgamālā are, like the renaissant-style deval Udai Singh commissioned for his father, Marwari examples of restorative nostalgia. Like Udai Singh, the ṭhākurs of Pali selectively chose to maintain their cultural and artistic autonomy while nominally allying with the Mughal emperors. Other Rajput painting patrons made very different, though still politically informed, stylistic choices. At around the same time, as Catherine Glynn has examined, the consistently pro-Mughal Kachhwaha rulers of Amber were 59

Ibid., 21–22.

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figure 3.9 Portrait of Udai Singh of Marwar by an anonymous Mughal painter, ca. 1580. Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

compiling albums of paintings strongly Mughal in style and subject matter, to demonstrate their imperial taste and connections. One of the Mughal paintings Bithal Das may well have viewed is a miniature portrait of Udai Singh by an anonymous Mughal painter, dated to around 1580 and now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Fig. 3.9). It depicts the Rājā literally wearing his “Mughal hat” (or more precisely, turban) and other Mughal courtly vestments, such as a chakdār jāmā belted with a richly embroidered gold patka. He leans forward, balancing his girth on a slender golden staff.

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This is a stock rendition in numerous paintings of Mughal darbārs, where ranks of assembled courtiers stand at attention before their seated emperor. The portrait makes for a good counterpoint to both Maldev’s chatrī, as it conveys Udai’s other identity, and the paintings of the Pali Rāgamālā, as it predates them by only a few decades and offers a markedly different style and subject matter. As demonstrated through the Pali paintings, early-seventeenth century Marwari painters were less concerned with photorealism than their imperial counterparts.60 There was not a tradition of portraiture in the Rajput courts until contact with the Mughals. Prior to this Rajput kings were depicted as ideals, not recognizable individuals.61 Conversely, from its foundations under Akbar, as demonstrated through Udai Singh’s portrait, mimetic portraiture was a distinguishing feature of Mughal art. Contemporaneous accounts tell us that Udai was indeed portly—indicating the extent to which he thrived at court— as he is shown in this portrait. Akbar is known to have referred to his friend, political ally, and relative by marriage affectionately as the “Mota Raja” (“fat king”).62 The presence of Udai Singh and his son and heir, Rājā Suraj Singh, at the imperial court is well recorded in several Mughal paintings, both in single study portraits and darbār scenes. Mughal courtiers were compelled to sit for their likenesses. However, neither Jodha Rathore king appears to have commissioned his own portrait by his own painters.63 Considering Udai Singh’s fraught relationship with the Mughals, which may be glimpsed through Maldev’s and his own chatrī, perhaps he elected not to adopt the genre for that very reason. Popular Mughal (subimperial) influence began to manifest in Marwari painting in the 1630s. Significantly, however, elements such as greater naturalism and more detailed architectural settings entered into the Jodha Rathore ateliers, not directly from the imperial atelier, but via other Rajput ones. A 60

61 62 63

As Vishaka Desai and Molly Aitken note, the lack of photorealism in certain Rajput painting traditions is not due to lack of skill, but politics, as well as the fact that Rajput painting is often informed by different aesthetic and thematic concerns than Mughal painting (Desai, “Painting and Politics”; “Timeless Symbols: Royal Portraits from Rajasthan, 17th– 19th Centuries,” in The Idea of Rajasthan; Aitken, (The Intelligence of Tradition in Rajput Court Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). The lack of photorealism in the Pali Rāgamālā is unsurprising, as the central thematic concern is rāsā (“flavor/ essence,” here, emotion), not mimesis. Desai, ibid. Abraham Eraly, Emperors of the Peacock Throne: The Saga of the Great Mughals (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2000), 299. Crill, ibid., 35–37.

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number of Marwari rāgamālā miniature paintings from the 1630s to 1650s show striking stylistic similarities with Merwari examples from the beginning of the century.64 It is therefore possible that features ultimately traceable to Mughal sources were initially more associated with the Rajputs because of their points of origin into Marwari royal and aristocratic ateliers. The royal Marwar painting atelier finally embraced Mughal-style portraiture in the first quarter of the seventeenth century under the patronage of Mahārājā Gaj Singh. By then the Marwari artists began to produce portraits in which the king appears as a recognizable individual. Features from contemporaneous Jahangiri and Shah Jahani paintings are conspicuous: the jharokha (balconied window); the royal sitter wearing the fashionable double pearl earrings that Jahangir popularized at court; jade green backgrounds; putti; and darbārs set in a char bagh (Persian-style formal garden). At other times the figures are executed in the Mughal nim qalam wash technique. However, while Mughal influence is pronounced in several late-seventeenth century Marwari paintings, they could not be mistaken for the work of imperial artists. Again, considering the great amount of time these Jodha Rathore kings spent at court—as is well documented particularly in the Padshahnāma text and paintings—they would certainly have been able to commission paintings that were more Mughal in their execution (Fig. 3.10). Instead, portraits of Gaj Singh combine Mughalized features with a high degree of stylization, which is uncommon to Mughal painting. Might these later seventeenth-century Jodha Rathore portraits have been commissioned to communicate that their patrons were versant with the imperial style, yet also remained dedicated to their independent Rajput identity? The Jodha Rathores, after all, appropriated the Indo-Islamic practice of constructing architectural funerary memorials, yet with their devals made memorialization uniquely their own and adapted it to voice their patrons’ quiet desire for Marwar’s autonomy. Mughal influence became even more apparent in the painting commissions of Gaj Singh’s son and successor, Mahārājā Jaswant Singh I (r. 1638–78), who, under Aurangzeb, was the first Rathore ruler in generations to oppose the Mughals. As I argue in the following chapter, the Mughal influence in Jaswant Singh’s paintings was probably intended to communicate a different message from that in his father’s paintings. 64

Crill, ibid., 7–31. This stands in distinction to royal Bikaneri painting. As noted in the introduction, Akbar gifted the Usta family of hereditary painters who herald from Iran to Mahārājā Rai Singh of Bikaner, which accounts for the earlier debut of Mughal influence in the Bika Rathores’ paintings.

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Portrait of Gaj Singh of Marwar, ca. 1725–40. Collection of Mehrangarh Museum Trust.

Conclusion

After Maldev, six generations of Marwar’s rulers were commemorated with devals at Mandore, despite the fact that they all died and were cremated far from their kingdom. Through these generations, the devals became larger and increasingly ornate, with the uraḥśṛṅgas on their śikharas becoming more numerous and higher in relief. While retaining the same basic plan and form, the memorials’ increased size and decoration reflect the stability and wealth of the state, which perhaps ironically, considering their messages of desired autonomy, was a result of the dynasty’s continued imperial favor. Thus, the deval was

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established as a meaningful form for nearly two centuries in Marwar, symbolizing the Jodha Rathores’ two hats: their commitment to rājādharma and the affluence they gained through their association with the Mughals. The paintings the kings of Marwar commissioned, as well as the Mughal commissions in which they feature, further complicate these two identities. The Jodha Rathores continued to serve in the Mughal court and army, and to reap the benefits of that relationship, until the reign of Jaswant Singh. His rule began a more overt policy of defiance toward the Mughals and rekindled the alliance with the Sisodia kingdom of Mewar. The shift in Marwari foreign policy was to inform Jaswant Singh’s deval. That cenotaph was commissioned by his son and heir, Mahārājā Ajit Singh (1638–78), in a different renaissant style that strongly references the Jodha Rathores return to the Sisodias’ graces and the antisultanate policies of Rāṇā Kumbha, one of the most celebrated Sisodia ancestors. The following chapter begins with the later Jodha Rathore renaissant devals at Mandore and examines how one mode of restorative nostalgia was exchanged for another as a way of announcing the dynasty’s shifting foreign policies.

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Shifting Allegiances, Shifting Styles: Later Jodha Rathore Memorials The Jodha Rathore rulers of Marwar were perhaps the most mercurial Rajput dynasty in their relations with the Mughals. Under Rao Maldev and his first four successors, they resisted sultanate and Mughal authority and fought numerous battles with both. This policy was overturned under Rājā Udai Singh, who allied with Akbar, served in his army and court, and married his sister and daughter to Akbar and the future emperor Jahangir, respectively. However, as argued in the previous chapter, the Jodha Rathore–Mughal alliance was borne largely of political exigency, and the archaism displayed in Marwari royal and aristocratic art throughout the late-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries suggests that in their hearts these patrons were not as loyal to their imperial overlords as they appeared to be on the battlefield and in court. Art was a form of restorative nostalgia that enabled the Jodha Rathore rulers to fabricate an alternative public identity and rewrite history. They appropriated the forms of local Pratihara Maha-Maru temples for their devals, and likewise borrowed styles and subjects from earlier schools of indigenous painting to associate themselves with an autonomous Marwari past. The Jodha Rathores continued their outward display of loyalty to the Mughals, for which they were amply rewarded with land and titles, allowing them to fund their artistic patronage until the mid-seventeenth century. Mahārājā Jaswant Singh was the first ruler of Marwar since Rao Chandrasen to foment discord with the Mughals, particularly during the Mughal civil war of 1658, when he repeatedly shifted allegiance between the various claimants to the throne. If Jaswant Singh was inconsistent in his relations with the Mughals, his son and successor, Ajit Singh (r. 1707–24), was outwardly hostile to them. Ajit Singh decisively exchanged Marwar’s alliance with the Mughals for one with the Sisodias of Mewar. This dramatic shift in the Jodha Rathores’ foreign policy impacted both Jaswant Singh’s and Ajit Singh’s memorials, as well as the latter’s painting and other architectural commissions. Appropriately, as Ajit Singh rekindled Marwar-Mewar relations, the works of art he commissioned appropriated from specific sites of communal memory in Mewar, rather than from local Pratihara temples. This chapter first locates the Jodha Rathores’ new deval style in its sociohistorical milieu, which was a turbulent time in north Indian politics. The

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004300569_006

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Maha-Maru style of the Jodha Rathores’ early devals announced their patrons’ covert desires for independence. Jaswant Singh’s and Ajit Singh’s devals were more overt expressions of rebellion in that their forms and decoration were appropriated from Sisodia temples in Mewar built in the Maru-Gurjara renaissant style that flourished there in the fifteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries. By the early- eighteenth century, this architectural style was well established as a metonym for a Sisodia past defined by resistance to sultanate and Mughal attacks. The chapter then turns to an analysis of Mahārājā Man Singh’s (1803– 43) cenotaph, of a type referred to as a thaṛa, the form and layout of which signal the late king’s devotion to the Nath religious order. The chapter concludes with an examination of Jaswant Thara, the Jodha Rathores’ dynastic memorial in Jodhpur. The dynasty’s various styles of memorials—Maha-Maru, Maru-Gurjara renaissant, and thaṛa—were dictated by their patrons’ relations with the ruling political power. The form and white marble of the Jaswant Thara, for example, reference the Taj Mahal, not to signify allegiance to the Mughals, but rather to their imperial replacement, the Jodha Rathores’ new allies, the British Raj.

Mahārājā Ajit Singh, the Sisodia Past, and the Maru-GurjaraRenaissant-Style Devals at Mandore

Jaswant Singh was the first Jodha Rathore to hold the title of mahārājā, which was conferred on him by Aurangzeb.1 Even so, Jaswant Singh had a complicated and tumultuous relationship with the Mughal emperor. Although he openly supported Shah Jahan and opposed Aurangzeb’s imprisonment of him, and then supported Prince Dara Shikoh’s bid for the throne, the emperor needed his military support for the war against Shivaji in the Deccan. To woo Jaswant Singh, Aurangzeb lavished titles, robes of honor, and military responsibilities upon him—the emperor raised Jaswant Singh’s manṣab (command) from four thousand to seven thousand—while also cleverly keeping him continuously on campaign, away from Marwar, and thus unable to instigate rebellion in his home state.2 Both Mughal and contemporaneous foreign sources record the reputation Jaswant Singh enjoyed during his lifetime: he distinguished himself as a warrior and military commander in the imperial army and posed a 1 Nagar, Genealogical Survey of Marwar, 15. Dhananajaya Singh, however, claims that Gaj Singh (r. 1619–38) was the first ruler of Marwar to be granted the title (by Shah Jahan) (House of Marwar, 77). 2 Reu, “Maharaja Jaswant Singh I,” in Glories of Marwar.

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significant threat to the Mughal presence in Rajput territories and to Aurangzeb in particular.3 Jaswant Singh was succeeded by his son, Ajit Singh who was born after his father’s death. Ajit Singh’s rule was marked by altercations with the Mughals, which began with Aurangzeb’s several attempts on his life shortly after his birth. According to the events of the story, with which most Marwari Rajputs are still well acquainted, one particular attempt on Ajit Singh’s life was thwarted by Gora Dai, his wet nurse, who substituted her own infant son for the king, knowing that both she and the child would be martyred for her deception. Even though Gora Dai was a non-noble, the Marwar darbār made the uncharacteristic gesture of honoring her for this sacrifice (which saved the Marwar throne) through a chatrī in Jodhpur. To protect the heir until he came of age, Ajit Singh was raised in secret in Mewar and in 1694 married Rāṇā Jai Singh Sisodia’s niece, becoming the first Jodha Rathore in over a century to marry a royal Sisodia woman.4 Ajit Singh was forced several times to retreat into seclusion as Aurangzeb divided his attention between his campaigns in Rajasthan and the Deccan. During the Thirty Years’ War (1679–1709) between the Mughals and the Rajput states of Marwar, Mewar, and Jaipur, Aurangzeb invaded Marwar numerous times, where he razed temples, erected mosques in their place, and forcibly converted Hindus and Jains to Islam.5 Ajit Singh finally received the rāj tīlak in 1707, the year of Aurangzeb’s death. Sources are conflicting on the subject of the Marwari nobles’ acceptance of their new mahārājā. Beginning with colonial accounts, the majority present 3 See the accounts of Aurangzeb’s French physician, Francois Bernier, who remarks that Jaswant Singh was “one of the most powerful Rajas in all India,” and that he commanded awe and fearful respect from the Mughal courtiers. Travels in India by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, trans. V. Ball, ed. William Crooke (Delhi, Low Price Publications, 1995), i, 278, 290–91. Reu cites a mention in the late Mughal text Tawārīkh-i Muhammad Shahi of Aurangzeb’s similar regard for him (Glories of Marwar, xxi). In the 1658 battle of Khajwa, Jaswant Singh besieged and plundered the Mughal camp. Among the spoils that remain in the royal collection at Mehrangarh is a lavishly embroidered velvet and silk luxury tent. See Stuart Cary Welch’s India: Art and Culture (New York: Metropolitan Museum, 1985), 252–56 and “A Tale of a Tent,” Marg 36, no. 2 (1985): 84–86. 4 Taft, “Honor and Alliance,” 231. 5 Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 62. Dhananajaya Singh provides a more balanced account of Aurangzeb’s campaigns in Marwar than most colonial and postcolonial sources and asserts that the causes of the Rathore-Mughal struggles were not religiously informed but strictly territorial (see “Bread and Water Have no Flavor,” in House of Marwar). For a broader discussion of both Hindu and Muslim politically-informed temple desecration, see Eaton, Temple Desecration and Muslim States.

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Ajit Singh as unanimously beloved in his home state.6 Others, however, suggest that many were skeptical of his lineage and doubted the plausibility of his near mythic survival to adulthood.7 Whatever the extent of the support Ajit Singh enjoyed from Marwari nobles, he certainly ruled Marwar during one of its most tumultuous eras. Alliances between the different Rajput dynasties and with the Mughals were being redrawn, and north India was in chaos as the Mughal Empire went into decline after Aurangzeb’s death. It was therefore incum­bent upon Ajit Singh to restore stability in his kingdom, establish strong alliances, substantiate his political legitimacy—and to broadcast these achieve­ments through his monumental public architectural commissions. In 1708, Ajit Singh, the Kachhwaha mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur, and the Sisodia ruler Rāṇā Amar Singh II of Mewar entered into a triple alliance against the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah, to expel the Mughals from Rajput territories. The Mewar-Marwar-Jaipur triumvirate was temporarily successful in driving the Mughal forces from Marwar and eliciting the emperor’s surrender. Marwar was briefly returned to Mughal suzerainty during the rule of the emperor Farrukhsiyar (r. 1713–19). At that time Ajit Singh’s son and heir, the future Mahārājā Abhai Singh (r. 1724–49), was taken hostage by the Mughal court, as insurance, and Ajit Singh was ordered to marry his daughter to the emperor. However, when Farrukhsiyar died, Ajit Singh reclaimed his daughter, along with her dowry, and returned with them both to Marwar.8 This was surely intended as an outright snub and act of defiance. Traditionally, among ­Hindus and South Asian Muslims, after a husband’s death the widowed daughter-in-law and her dowry remain with her marital family. By reclaiming both, Ajit Singh communicated that he was definitively severing his ties with the Mughals. According to an inscription on Jaswant Singh’s deval, Ajit Singh began its construction in 1720, a year after Farrukhsiyar’s death. Thus the planning and building of his father’s memorial coincides with Ajit Singh’s wider program of defiance against the empire. History credits Ajit Singh with achieving what four generations of his ancestors could not: defiance of the Mughals, autonomy for his state, and the recovery of the Sisodias acknowledgment of the Jodha Rathores as equals. (The Sisodias, considered among Rajput clans the preeminent upholders of Rajput 6 James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajast’han: Or the Central and Western Rajput States of India, vol. II (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971), 1007. 7 Robert C. Hallissey, Rajput Rebellion against Aurangzeb: A Study of the Mughal Empire in Seventeenth-Century India (Columbia: University of Missouri, 1977), 55. 8 Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 64.

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dharm, had officially refused both political and marital alliances with the Mughals and any Rajput house that did not do the same. The Rathores alienated the Sisodias by serving in the imperial army in the several Mughal attacks on Mewar, and when Udai Singh entered into political and matrimonial alliances with the Mughals, the Sisodias finally turned their backs on them.) Ajit Singh referenced his political and cultural triumphs through his quotations from the fifteenth-century Mewari Maru-Gurjara-renaissant architectural lexicon, which (as discussed in chapter 3) was patronized by and associated with Rāṇā Kumbha, one of the most esteemed Sisodia kings.9 As his great-great-great grandfather, Udai Singh, and generations of Rajput rulers had done before him, Ajit Singh molded his own public identity through the medium of his father’s deval. However, unlike Udai Singh, there was nothing deceptive about Ajit Singh’s memorial commission; its bow to the fifteenth-century Mewari architectural style is appropriate for a patron who enjoyed political, cultural, and marital ties with the Sisodias. In addition to his extensive renovations and expansions to the Jodha Rathore fort, Mehrangarh, in Jodhpur, Ajit Singh razed Aurangzeb’s mosques and rebuilt the Hindu temples that had previously occupied the sites.10 Befitting the memory of one of the Jodha Rathores’ most eminent kings, Jaswant Singh’s deval (Fig. 4.1) is significantly larger (built on a slope and a large plinth, exaggerating its size), more elaborately decorated with high relief sculptures, and has a more complex plan than the earlier devals at Mandore. The major formal and decorative differences separating Jaswant Singh’s deval from its predecessors in Mandore include its three directional entrances and lofty clerestory over the maṇḍapa. The śekharī-style śikhara is more linear than those on the previous devals, and the uraḥśṛṅgas are more numerous and in higher relief. Below the amalaka (named after a similarly shaped fruit; disc surmounting the śikhara) and a kalaśa (“water pot” shaped finial above the amalaka) are four directional faces. On three sides of the śikhara hang doublestacked balconies surmounted by sculpted elephants and lions in the round. In the interior a pradakṣiṇā patha (circumambulatory path) encircles the garbha gṛha. The door frame to the garbha gṛha is covered in reliefs of scrolling 9

10

Possibly due to the disastrous fraternal skirmishes for the Kachhwaha throne that were an indirect result of Mahārājā Jai Singh’s alliance with the Sisodias, the Kachhwahas did not appropriate the Mewari Maru-Gurjara renaissant style and their chatrīs are devoid of references to Mewar. Dhananajaya Singh, “Bread and Water Have no Flavor.” For Ajit Singh’s contributions to Mehrangarh, see Giles Tillotson, The Rajput Palaces: The Development of an Architectural Style, 1450–1750 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 136–41.

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figure 4.1 Deval of Mahārājā Jaswant Singh, Mandore necropolis, outside of Jodhpur, commissioned by Mahārājā Ajit Singh, late-seventeenth century

vegetal work that emanate from the beak of a swan at the base on either side. The maṇḍapa is crowned by an exquisitely carved ceiling with a padmaśilā ringed by brackets offering high reliefs of female dancers and musicians. All these features make Jaswant Singh’s deval more akin to temples built in the Maru-Gurjara renaissant style under the Sisodia kings Rāṇā Kumbha and Jagat Singh I (r. 1628–52) than to those built by the Gurjara or Mandore Pratiharas in Marwar. For example, the clerestories and śikharas on the deval are similar to those in numerous Maha-Maru-renaissant temples in Mewar: the Eklingji temple in Kailashpuri, the present form of which was commissioned by Rāṇā Kumbha or his son, Rāṇā Hamir; Kumbha’s temples in Chittorgarh’s fort; the Adinatha Jain temple at Ranakpur, which was built during Kumbha’s reign; and the Jagdish temple in Udaipur, built by Jagat Singh in 1651. MaruGurjara-renaissant formal and decorative features were to be even more pronounced in Ajit’s own deval. The Maru-Gurjara renaissant style of sacred architecture’s deep association with Mewar and Rāṇā Kumbha in particular were probably the chief factors that prompted Ajit Singh to appropriate it for this father’s deval. As noted in chapter 1, the Sisodias were highly regarded by the other Rajputs for their valor, martial prowess, and longstanding reluctance to ally with the sultanates or

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Mughals power. The dynasty possessed several ancestors who were paradigms of Rajput dharm. Among them was Rāṇā Kumbha, the celebrated warrior-king who brought Mewar to its height both financially and territorially. He successfully defended his kingdom against the expansions of the sultanates of Malwa and Gujarat. Kumbha was also a prolific patron of architecture and brought the Maru-Gurjara style fashionably up to date to associate himself and the Sisodias with the centuries of martial, Hindu dynasties in northwestern Rajasthan who built in that style. Like the Pratiharas, Kumbha promoted himself specifically as a Rajput ruler, an identity he created in opposition to his sultanate enemies. Scholars have recently begun to examine how the Sisodias’ illustrious reputation was in large part, of their own fashioning.11 In the sixteenth century, Sisodia kings began commissioning panegyric literature that lionized ancestors such as Rāṇās Pratap and Kumbha and mapped the line of descent directly to the royal patron. In 1460, Kumbha had verses inscribed on his monumental vijay stambha in Chittorgarh to proclaim his victory over the sultanate armies of Malwa and Gujarat led by Mahmud Khilji (1436–69).12 Similarly, in 1680 Rāṇā Raj Singh had a laudatory text, the Rajaprashasti, inscribed on stone slabs around the ghāṭ (steps to water) of Rajsamand Lake in Mewar.13 The large scale of these monuments and their inscriptions ensured a wide public audience for their legitimizing messages. As examined in chapter 6, the Sisodias also promoted these qualities, and the divine ordination of their rule, through their arts in other media, including painting and palace, sacred and funerary architecture. As various groups rose to fill the power vacuum created by the weakening Mughal Empire, the Sisodias capitalized on their self-promoted reputation as the guardians of Rajput dharm. The Sisodias’ politically motivated commissions were clearly successful and established their reputation within Mewar and throughout other Rajput states as the most dharmik dynasty. As Ajit Singh spent much of his early life in Mewar, and married a Sisodia princess, he would have been familiar with the Sisodias’ propagandistic artworks. By associating himself with the Sisodias through their Maru-Gurjara renaissant style, he announced that he possessed similar qualities and ideologies. And by marrying their daughter to him, the Sisodias 11

12 13

Among others: Taft, “Honor and Alliance.” Joffee, “Art, Architecture and Politics.” Talbot, “The Mewar Court’s Construction of History,” 13–35. Molly Emma Aitken, The Intelligence of Tradition in Rajput Court Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), 60–70. G.N. Sharma, “Maharana Kumbha (1433–1468): Political Achievements,” in History and Culture of Rajasthan, 206. Talbot, “The Mewar Court’s Construction of History,” 16.

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signaled their agreement. Ajit Singh’s adoption of Rāṇā Kumbha’s Maru-­ Gurjara renaissant style also associated the Jodha Rathores with an autonomous moment in the collective past of the wider Rajput “imagined community,” which was defined in contradistinction to the sultanates and Mughals, adding yet another politically charged layer of meaning to Jaswant Singh’s deval. Ajit Singh’s appropriation of the Maru-Gurjara renaissant style was thus symbiotic, benefitting himself, as patron of the deval; his dynasty; and the Sisodias. Ajit Singh joined generations of Sisodia bards in disseminating the Sisodias’ superior reputation, in his own state. The Mughals also assisted in endorsing the Sisodias as the foremost Rajput dynasty.14 In his Jahangirnāma, Jahangir aggrandizes the Sisodias’ martial prowess and pride, emphasizing that they did not ally with any Indo-Islamic power until his victory over them in 1615.15 The resulting treaty granted the Sisodias privileges not extended to any other Rajput dynasty, which included not marrying their daughters to the Mughals and exempting the Sisodia king from attending the imperial darbār. By highlighting the Sisodias’ dedication to their autonomy, battle skills, and victories over the earlier sultanates, and in acknowledging their superiority among the Rajputs, Jahangir in turn underscored his own prowess.16 As most Rajput rulers spent considerable time at court, and were friends with and even related to the Mughals, they would have been well aware of their emperor’s esteem of the Sisodias. When the British arrived on the scene, Colonel James Tod took for granted the version of Rajput history related by Sisodia royal bards and texts. His Annals and Antiquities of Rajast’han, published between 1829 and 1832, is largely responsible for the notion of Sisodia superiority among Rajput clans continuing into the colonial and postcolonial eras.

14 15 16

Aitken, The Intelligence of Tradition, 63. Thackston, trans., Jahangirnama, 149. As examined elsewhere in this study in pre-colonial India both victors and the vanquished highlighted their adversaries’ formidability in their court panegyrics to increase the glory of their victory in the case of the former, or justify their defeat in the case of the latter. In addition to Jahangir’s favorable presentation of the Sisodias, which reflects positively upon himself, Cynthia Talbot investigates the contradictory Mughal and Hada interpretations of the latter’s defeat under Akbar. She focuses on the Surjancarita, a Hada panegyric of the early-seventeenth century, interpreting its glorification of the Mughals as a desire to cast them as worthy adversaries (“Justifying Defeat: A Rajput Perspective on the Age of Akbar,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, nos 2–3, (2012); 329–68.

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Same Message, Different Media: Ajit Singh’s Other Commissions

Ajit Singh’s commissions in other artistic media also appear to announce the Jodha Rathores’ new anti-Mughal, pro-Mewar foreign policy. In addition to the Mewari, he employed other styles, forms, and decorations—including the Mughal—to announce his public identity and political ideology and ensure that it was understood by a wide audience. While the Mewari Maru-Gurjara renaissant style of the deval for Jaswant Singh may be interpreted as an expression of renewed Mewar-Marwar relations, two of Ajit Singh’s other architectural commissions and a series of cultural and political acts serve more as testimony to the severing of the Rathores’ century-and-a-half-old alliance with the Mughals. To commemorate Marwar’s independence and victory over Bahadur Shah, Ajit Singh commissioned two monumental īwan-style gateways: the Fateh Pol at the Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur and the Ajit Pol at Mandore (Fig. 70). Similar to European triumphal arches in both form and function, these two structures are part of a wider royal, pan-Indic tradition of victory gates, one of the best known examples being Akbar’s Buland Darwaza at Fatehpur Sikri, which the emperor commissioned in 1576 to commemorate his conquest of Gujarat. It is also possible that Ajit Singh was inspired by Rāṇā Kumbha’s monumental vijay stambha at Chittorgarh (as Ishwari Singh, as discussed in chapter 1, probably was too). While Ajit Singh’s and Rāṇā Kumbha’s commissions differ in form and practical use (the former being portals, the latter a tower), they were informed by the same symbolic function: to broadcast their patrons’ military successes to the widest possible audience through the medium of monumental architecture. As reflected in their names, Ajit Singh’s portals proclaim their patron’s military successes to the twin audiences of his public and vanquished enemies.17 The Mughalized forms of the gateways indicate that he had not entirely abandoned this style of architecture in favor of the pre-Indo Islamic MaruGurjara one. Each style was appropriate in its respective context. Perhaps the portals’ familiar Mughal forms were employed to ensure that their meaning would not be misunderstood by members of the imperial audience—a bold move that would enable these structures to function as architectural snubs. While the archaized styles of the earlier Jodha Rathore devals might have been explained away to the Mughals and their supporters as purely sacred in 17

The semantic content of fateh and ajit is identical: both mean “victory.” Fateh is Persian and Urdu. Ajit, which is also the patron’s name, is Hindi and Marwari, from Sanskrit. In naming his portals in these north Indian languages, Ajit secured a universal understanding for the intended message of his two portal commissions.

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figure 4.2 Ajit pol at the Mandore Jodha Rathore necropolis

meaning, the gist of these monuments commemorating victories over the empire was brazen, and would not have been possible before Ajit Singh’s rule. Several portraits of Ajit Singh’s father, Jaswant Singh dating to the 1640’s to 1680’s, owe a debt to contemporaneous Mughal and Decani paintings in their style and modes of representing the royal subject—often nimbated, on horseback, with women in a char bagh (Fig. 4.2), or against a jade-colored background. In Marwar photorealistic portraiture reached its height under Jaswant Singh’s patronage. Many of his paintings are known to be the work of artists who were trained in the imperial atelier but working in Marwar at the time.18 Given Jaswant Singh’s known animosity toward the Mughals, it may appear paradoxical that paintings from his atelier should exhibit such pronounced Mughal influence. He spent a great deal of time at the Mughal court and would have been well acquainted with the imperial commissions. He was equally ­receptive to contemporary Deccani influences.19 As Aurangzeb sharply curtailed imperial patronage, several painters from Mughal workshops found

18 19

Crill, Marwar Painting, 44–48. Ibid., 48.

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figure 4.3 Painting of Jaswant Singh of Marwar listening to music, ca. 1660. Collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1980.

e­ m­ploy­ment in other Indian courts, including Marwar.20 Perhaps the highly Mughalized style of paintings such as fig. 4.3 (ca. 1660), which depicts a recognizable likeness of Jaswant Singh in a Mughal garden, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, were intended to demonstrate the Jodha 20

Jorrit Britschgi, “Late Mughal Painting and the Renaissance of the Hindu Courts,” in Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India, 1100–1900, ed. John Guy and Jorrit Britschgi (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011), 146.

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­ athores’ familiarity with imperial arts and culture, and that they could even R surpass it. Jaswant Singh, and later, Ajit Singh may have commissioned lavish portraits that were strongly imperial in flavor to signal their differences from Aurangzeb, who largely abandoned support for the arts. Could imperial elements in the paintings of Rajput courts like the Jodha Rathores that were, in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries, hostile to the Mughals have been intended to announce cultural differences between the Rajput and Mughal courts? While the appropriation of Mughal painting styles among pro-Mughal Rajput states such as Amber and Bikaner during the-late sixteenth to earlyeighteenth centuries communicated their patrons’ urbanity, elite status in the imperial court, and access to imperial paintings and painters, the mode of appropriation may have shifted during Aurangzeb’s rule. Perhaps Jaswant Singh’s painters incorporated Mughalized elements to more clearly communicate that in his artistic proclivities, as in his politics, he differed greatly from Aurangzeb. Giving refuge to redundant Mughal painters, and advertising that fact, may have been another way to snub the emperor. Many portraits of Ajit Singh, in contrast, offer scenes of the mahārājā in procession during Hindu festivals or hunting, with pronounced size hierarchy, squat figures, flattening of the picture plane, and a bright color palette. A painting dated to 1722, now in the Bharat Kala Bhavan, Banaras, depicts the nimbated mahārājā seated on an elephant leading a procession, possibly during the Hindu festival of Gangur (Fig. 4.4). The picture plane is compressed and two-dimensional. The bright colors, distortion of the figures’ size, and in particular the multiple angles, all bear influence of the contemporaneous royal Sisodia atelier of Mewar under Mahārānā Sangram Singh (r. 1710–34), Ajit Singh’s relation by marriage.21 Given the widespread practice among the north Indian courts of including paintings and even artists in a royal dowry, it is plausible that both accompanied Ajit Singh’s barāt (procession of the groom to claim the bride) to Marwar. The Mewari painting style and all that it conveyed were so deeply associated with Ajit Singh that it was employed in his posthumous portraits (Fig. 4.5). Dated to approximately a quarter century after Ajit Singh’s death, a painting of the mahārājā in the David Collection, Copenhagen, is executed in a similarly Mewari style, although this mode had fallen out of favor in Marwar after Ajit Singh’s death. In it he presides over a darbār in a formal garden, attended by his sons. Characteristic of Mewari painting of the early eighteenth century, sections of the garden below and architecture to the right are rendered in twisted 21

Crill, Marwar Painting, 58–59.

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figure 4.4 Painting of Ajit Singh of Marwar in procession, dated 1722. Collection of Bharat Kala Bhavan, Banaras.

figure 4.5 Posthumous painting of Ajit Singh, mid-eighteenth century. David Collection, Copenhagen.

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perspective, faces are schematized, and there is a pronounced lack of depth. In the traditional Rajput manner, Ajit Singh is seated on the ground, leaning against a bolster, rather than enthroned, as in Mughal and Mughal influenced Rajput portraits. However, not all of Ajit Singh’s paintings bear such conspicuous lack of Mughal influence. There is no record that Ajit Singh fired the Mughal painters his father recruited, and their imperial-workshop training is manifest in portraits such as those in the Porret Collection, Geneva, and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, executed during the same period as the Mewari-style ones.22 According to various colonial sources, in 1720 Ajit Singh became the first Jodha Rathore ruler in generations to mint coins in his own name rather than that of the Mughal emperor.23 This act was a well-timed proclamation of the Jodha Rathores’ new autonomy. Striking coins in a one’s own name was by then an established means of declaring independence that had been employed by centuries of rulers. Moreover, if these sources are correct, Ajit Singh’s act was timely, as 1720 was the very year of the completion of Jaswant Singh’s deval. The portals, Mewari-style paintings, and coins would have operated in concert with the renaissant Mewari style of Jaswant Singh’s deval to announce to the Mughals, the Marwari public, and other Rajput courts specifically which power the independent Jodha Rathores sought to associate themselves with, culturally and politically. The meanings of Ajit Singh’s commissions would not have been misunderstood by their various audiences. He had decisively exchanged the Mughals for the Sisodias.24

22

23 24

The Porret portrait, which is very Mughal in style, is reproduced in B.N. Goswamy et al., A Secret Garden: Indian Paintings from the Porret Collection (Zurich: Museum Reitberg, 2014), 68. Among others: Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 64. Compelling as this scenario may be, sources are not in agreement that Ajit actually struck his own coins. Perhaps they were limited? Bisheshwar Nath Reu claims that the first coins minted in Marwar date to the reign of Bijay Singh (r. 1752–93). That these were struck with the permission of the emperor Shah Alam, whose name and regnal year are prominently displayed, reflects the nuanced nature of Rajput-Mughal relations at the time. Although the Rajput courts gained increasing autonomy after Aurangzeb’s death, Bijay Singh’s coins indicate that they had not completely severed ties with the imperial court and that, in matters of state, the emperor’s benediction remained essential (albeit often purely symbolic). Bisheshwar Nath Reu, Coins of Marwar: From 400 bc to 1945 ad (Jodhpur: Government Press, 1946), 4–5.

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figure 4.6 Deval of Mahārājā Ajit Singh, commissioned by Mahārājā Abhai Singh, early-­ eighteenth century, Mandore



Mixed Messages: Art and Politics under Mahārājā Abhai Singh

Ajit Singh was the final Jodha Rathore ruler to be memorialized through a deval. Towering over a line of devals commemorating five generations of rulers beginning in the late-sixteenth century, Ajit Singh’s is the largest and most ornately decorated at Mandore (Fig. 4.6). Appropriate for a deval erected in memory of the ruler who facilitated the renewed Rathore-Sisodia alliance, the Mewari renaissant style comes to fruition in Ajit Singh’s memorial. The cenotaph offers all the Maru-Gurjara-renaissant formal and decorative features of Jaswant Singh’s memorial and adds more sumptuous and deeper relief carvings in both the interior and exterior (Fig. 4.7, 4.8). The door frame of the garbha gṛha is covered with sculpted foliage, blossoms, geometric shapes, chaurī bearers, peacocks, and numerous deities enthroned in rājā līlāsāna (“posture of royal ease” one leg folded horizontal to the body, the other pendant) (Fig. 4.9). Two of the most distinguishing features of the Maru-Gurjara renaissant style are a continuous band of deep-relief friezes (Figs 4.10, 4.11) on the exterior base of the vimāna (rather than being confined to the exterior walls’ lower section), and deeply projecting niches that enshrine female dancers, chaurī

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figure 4.7 figure 75 Interior of Ajit Singh’s deval

figure 4.8 Interior of the dome in Ajit Singh’s deval

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figure 4.9 Lintel over garbha gṛha in Ajit Singh’s deval, Mandore

figure 4.10

Vimāna of Ajit Singh’s deval

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Detail on the vimāna on Ajit Singh’s deval depicting reliefs of figures from the Hindu pantheon. Bhairava is on the far right

bearers, and Hindu deities. Ajit Singh’s is the only deval at Mandore to offer these decorative features. Other Mandore devals have no figural decoration on their exteriors, and only minimal figural representations in their interiors. Although the friezes on the exterior of Ajit Singh’s deval depict various deities, they are, as is appropriate to a funerary memorial, given Shiva’s designation as the Lord of Death, overwhelmingly dominated by Shaivite figures: Shiva in his various emanations (particularly his wrathful form, Bhairava), and Shaivite goddesses. While the earlier devals offer undecorated praṇālas, the channel in

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figure 4.12

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Praṇāla on Ajit Singh’s deval

Ajit Singh’s deval terminates in the head of a makara (fabulous crocodilian beast), also as in several Maru-Gurjara-renaissant-style temples (Fig. 4.12). We have established that countless examples of Rajput cenotaphs testify to the fact that kings who come to their thrones amidst controversy communicate their legitimacy through the patronage of lavish memorials for their fathers. Ajit Singh’s deval is the largest and by far the most ornate at Mandore. So we must wonder what anxieties haunted Mahārājā Abhai Singh, Ajit Singh’s eldest son and undisputed heir, when he became the new ruler of Marwar. Ajit Singh was forced to send Abhai Singh to the Mughal court, as insurance that he would not rebel. This was ultimately to prove Ajit Singh’s downfall, as the emperor, Muhammad Shah, successfully persuaded Abhai Singh and his brother, Bakht Singh, to assassinate their father.25 With the emperor’s benediction, Abhai Singh then succeeded his father. While Abhai Singh benefited tremendously from his service to the emperor (being rewarded with land grants, titles, and governorships) what history does not record is how the nobles of Marwar regarded his two transgressions: his patricide and his renewed alliance with the Mughals, whom his father had devoted his reign to resisting. Several of Abhai Singh’s brothers did, at various times—with the support of the 25

Among others: Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 64–65.

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Marathas, Sisodias, Kachhwahas, and Bika Rathores—rebel against him. And it is safe to assume that Abhai Singh’s rule was not unanimously supported by the nobles in his court. The deval Abhai Singh commissioned for his father, which was completed during the brief reign of his brother, Bakht Singh (r. 1751–52), once again belies the true historical circumstances in which it was constructed. On the one hand, the deval irrefutably establishes Abhai Singh as the son and worthy heir to a king who was widely celebrated for his dedication to the Rajput dharm. Abhai Singh would certainly have been at pains to stress his descent from Ajit Singh. On the other hand, the deval’s exceptionally elaborate form and decorative program was perhaps intended to obfuscate the brothers’ crime and portray them as dutiful to the father they conspired to murder. The painting commissions of earlier Jodha Rathore kings had by and large worked in concert with their memorials to announce, through their stylistic influences, where their patrons stood on issues of foreign policy. In contrast, while Abhai Singh commissioned a Maru-Gurjara-renaissant-style memorial for his father that was a bow toward Mewar, whose foreign policy his father had supported, the paintings he commissioned are marked by a strong Mughal flavor—indeed one more pronounced and synthesized than in any his ancestors commissioned. Mughal painters who were made redundant by Aurangzeb were welcomed at the Marwar atelier since Jaswant Singh’s reign. In his grandson, Abhai Singh, they found a patron who fostered their imperial style, rather than insist they temper it with Rajput influences. The best known of the Mughal-trained Marwari painters in Abhai Singh’s atelier was Dalchand.26 In a portrait by Dalchand, circa 1725 (Fig. 4.13), Abhai Singh sits enthroned on a golden Mughal-style throne unlike the bolsters (as in Ajit Singh’s darbār scene from the David Collection) or traditional Rajput wooden gaddī, or siṃhāsan, upon which his ancestors sit in their portraits. The royal subject is encircled by a cool-green and gold-leaf halo. He presides, in a Mughal-style marble veranda, over a performance in which several of the dancers are dressed in Mughal attire. Like the deval Abhai Singh commissioned for his father, Dalchand’s paintings of the king depict their subject as self-assured and cloak the issues of the internal and external skirmishes that characterized his rule. If a desire to abrogate or at least conceal their crime did inform Abhai Singh’s and Bakht Singh’s lavish funerary commission for their father, it was 26

For more on Dalchand, see Catherine Glynn, “Rathore and Mughal Interactions: Artistic Development at the Nagur Court, 1600–1750,” in Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur, ed. Debra Diamond et al. (Washington DC, Smithsonian Institution, 2009), 15–16.

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Painting of Abhai Singh watching a dance performance, Dalchand, ca. 1725. Collection of Mehrangarh Museum Trust, Jodhpur.

only in part successful. The deval eulogizes the king it commemorates in an architectural vocabulary appropriate to his political successes. But history remembers Abhai Singh and Bakht Singh as patricides. And, perhaps reflecting their alliance with the Mughals, they are both memorialized, not through devals—as six generations of their ancestors had been—but through umbrellashaped chatrīs (Fig. 4.14), which are, and probably not coincidentally, far more Mughal in style than indigenous Rajasthani.

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Chatrī commemorating either Abjay Singh or Bhakat Singh of Marwar, Mandore

In late-sixteenth to early-eighteenth century Marwar, the meaning of an umbrella-shaped cenotaph had shifted radically in response to the changing political landscape. Whereas in other Rajput courts during this period, chatrīs signified dharmik kingship and other favorable attributes associated with the Rajput jāti, in Marwar these qualities had been signified for seven generations by the deval-style memorial. It appears that in Mahārājās Abhai Singh’s and Bakht Singh’s cases, the reversion to the chatrī memorial form reflects their unpardonable crimes of patricide and compromising their father’s anti-Mughal foreign policy.

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The following two generations of Jodha Rathore kings, Bijay Singh (r. 1752– 93) and Bhim Singh (r. 1793–1803), were also commemorated through chatrīs in Mandore. These uninscribed memorials, interspersed among the loftier devals, offer little surface decoration. Their repetitive, unadorned forms may be explained by the inglorious rules of the kings they commemorate. Under Bijay Singh, Marwar’s territory and wealth were sharply reduced, commerce diminished, frequent rebellions broke out among the nobles, and the state was constantly engaged in battle with the Marathas. Bijay Singh was also widely criticized for allowing his mistress to gain undue influence over him. After a bitter succession struggle among Bijay Singh’s sons, Bhim Singh succeeded his father and ordered executions of the surviving claimants to the throne. One (unsuccessful) execution orders was aimed at his young cousin, the future Mahārājā Man Singh (r. 1803–43).27 Significantly, the rules of Bijay Singh and Bhim Singh were concomitant with those of the equally ill-reputed Kach­ hwaha king of Jaipur, Jagat Singh. As noted in chapter 1, Jagat Singh’s career was such an embarrassment to his successor that he alone of Jaipur’s rulers is not commemorated through any architectural structure at all. Bijay Singh’s and Bhim Singh’s discreet, unadorned chatrīs communicate a similar message. Associating with either ruler would have done little for their successors’ legitimacy claims. And Man Singh, for one, had little reason to idealize the uncle who attempted to kill him.

Man Singh, the Naths, and the Mahārājā’s Thaṛa

In contrast to the chatrī he commissioned for his predecessor, Mahārājā Man Singh’s own cenotaph (Fig. 4.15) possesses a complex layout that is both personal and symbolic. Built by Man Singh’s adopted son, Takht Singh (r. 1843–73), this memorial type, known as a thaṛa, is defined by a boundary wall that encircles a court leading to a rectangularly planned, domed chamber one bay deep (Fig. 4.16). In the interior of the chamber a painted portrait of the late mahārājā is enthroned on a gaddī draped in saffron fabric. Man Singh appears to be the first Jodha Rathore king honored through a portrait rather than enthroned wooden sandals such as those the colonial servant H.B. Garrick observed (see note 51 in chapter 3). As examined in the previous chapter, in Marwari Rajput funerary art only posthumously deified heroes are memorialized through figural relief icons on steles. And those heroes in life were seldom kings. That paintings or photographs appear in the memorials of 27

Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 70.

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figure 4.15

Thaṛa of Mahārājā Man Singh of Jodhpur, mid-nineteenth century, commissioned by Mahārājā Takht Singh, Mandore

Man Singh and all subsequent Jodha Rathore kings points to an important distinction: nonroyal Rajputs revered as folk deities are represented by relief sculptures on steles, and royals by two-dimensional depictions. As with those of his successors, Man Singh’s portrait is honored through daily memorial services conducted by the resident priest. This will continue until the death of Gaj Singh II, the present king of Jodhpur, who is Man Singh’s seventh-generation ancestor.28

28

Interview with the priest of Man Singh’s and Takht Singh’s thaṛas (February 6, 2006). See the introduction for a more detailed explication of how long ancestors are honored.

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Interior of Man Singh’s thaṛa with a portrait of the memorialized king enthroned on a miniature throne draped in saffron colored cloth

The uncommon layout of Man Singh’s memorial may have been influenced by the arts and devotional practices of the Nath Sampradaya, a heterodox Shaivite order, to which Man Singh was devoted. Significantly, painting, particularly portraiture, reached artistic heights in Marwar under Man Singh’s and the Naths’ patronage, and served various religious and political functions.29 This may account for the inclusion of portraits of the deceased in memorial installations from this time onward.30 29 30

Diamond, Garden and Cosmos, 31–41. The form of the thaṛa may also be explained in part by Man Singh’s troubled relations with the Sisodias. One of the embarrassments of Man Singh’s career was his several-

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Man Singh had a troubled rule that was contested by various factions at court and complicated by the rising Maratha and British powers. He is also remembered for his prolific patronage of the arts, eccentric character, and above all his devotion to the Naths, who gave him refuge when he was being persecuted by his uncle, Mahārājā Bhim Singh. In 1803, Ayas Devnath, the head of the order at Jolore and Man Singh’s guru, accurately prophesized that Man Singh would triumph and be the next king.31 In Hindu kingship, the king does not rule as sovereign but as the terrestrial dīvān to the dynastic iṣṭdevā or kul devā—a concept that impacted the Bika Rathores’ and Sisodias’ funerary arts as well. In the case of Mahārājā Man Singh, a devotee of the Naths, this meant he promoted himself as the representative of the mahāsiddha Jalandhar Nath, one of the order’s supradivine early adepts.32 Man Singh commissioned Maha Mandir and Udai Mandir, two monumental Nath temple complexes dedicated to Jalandhar Nath (Fig. 4.17). Reflecting both divided public opinion about the order during Man Singh’s rule and his own devotion to it, the two temples were erected outside of Jodhpur’s city walls and within their own fortified compounds. Each temple functioned as the nucleus of a small, self-sufficient town. The Maha Mandir complex alone supported a community of over twenty-five hundred people33 and during Man Singh’s rule became the unofficial seat of government, temporarily replacing Mehrangarh Fort. With their land grants, vast fortunes, and acquisition of political power, many Naths approximated jagīrdārs. Mahārājā Man Singh, meanwhile, embodied the symbolic conflation between ruler, renunciate, and dīvān. In fact, he took vows of renunciation and dressed in saffron robes to protest British presence in his state and their objections to the Nath influence in his political affairs.34 Thus, as with the mutually legitimating relationship between the Naruka kings and the Dadu Panthis, which receives expression in both groups’ chatrīs, the worldly and spiritual statuses of Man Singh and the Naths

31 32

33 34

year-long skirmish with the Kachhwahas over the marriage of a Sisodia princess, who ultimately committed suicide (Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 70–73). It would have been inappropriate for Man Singh’s memorial to reference Mewar and, by extension, the war. Diamond, Garden and Cosmos, 31–41. Interview with Mahandra Singh Nagar, February 26, 2006. For a brief history of the Nath movement in Rajasthan and Man Singh’s devotion to the sect, see Padmaja Sharma, “Man Singh and the Naths,” in Maharaja Man Singh of Jodhpur and His Times (1803–1843) (Agra: Shiva Lal Agarwala, 1972). Ibid., 155. Singh, House of Marwar, 113–19.

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figure 4.17

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The Maha Mandir in Jodhpur, commissioned by Man Singh

were fluid and exchangeable, and impacted the form and organization of the mahārājā’s thaṛa. The distinctive oblong dome of Man Singh’s thaṛa echoes the form of those over the maṇḍapa at Udai Mandir and over the main shrine in Maha Mandir. The sacred installation inside Man Singh’s thaṛa also parallels the one within Udai Mandir (Fig. 4.18). The focus of worship at Udai Mandir is a painting of Jalandhar Nath enthroned on a miniature silver throne draped with saffron fabric and crowned by an umbrella. As Debra Diamond explains, the inclusion of a painting, rather than a sculpture of the divine, as is more frequent in Hindu temples, is in accordance with the Nath practice of chitra darśan (literally “picture seeing,” or meeting the gaze of the divine in the painting). With roots in earlier Krishnaivite Vallabha art and worship, which were supported by Man Singh’s immediate predecessors, chitra darśan locates the divine subject within its image. At Udai Mandir, Jalandhar Nath is believed to inhabit his painting.35 Man Singh’s own enthroned memorial portrait should be understood in

35

Diamond, Garden and Cosmos, 281. Also, Diamond, “The Cartography of Power: Mapping Genres in Jodhpur Painting,” in Arts of Mughal India: Studies in Honour of Robert Skelton, ed. Rosemary Crill et al. (Ahmedabad: Mapin, 2004), 283.

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figure 4.18

Enthroned image of Jullandharnath, Maha Mandir

relation to this practice of chitra darśan, thereby once again conflating the Hindu ruler, the divine, and the renunciate. Takht Singh was Man Singh’s adopted heir, and his accession met with little resistance; Man Singh died issueless, and there were no other suitable candidates for the position. However, Takht Singh proved to be an inept administrator, the nobles frequently rebelled, and he was compelled to cede nearly all political power in his state to the British.36 It is therefore surprising that, while 36

Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 73.

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figure 4.19

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Interior of Takhat Singh’s thaṛa, Mandore, commissioned by Mahārājā Jaswant Singh II, late-nineteenth century. Takhat Singh’s enthroned portrait is central; to the right is an enthroned portrait of Man Singh.

Man Singh’s thaṛa memorializes his relationship to the Naths, it in no way bolsters Takht Singh’s own rule. Takht Singh’s own thaṛa, which is located next to his adopted father’s and identical to it in form and layout, was commissioned by his son and heir, Mahārājā Jaswant Singh II (r. 1873–95). The duplicated forms and proximity of the memorials bespeaks Jaswant Singh’s perceived necessity to stress the royal line of descent from Man Singh to Takht Singh and finally to himself. While the subject of lineage is overlooked in Man Singh’s memorial, it is broadcasted in Takht Singh’s thaṛa (Fig. 4.19). The focus of Man Singh’s thaṛa is a lone enthroned miniature painting; in Takht Singh’s, the memorialized mahārājā’s enthroned photograph sits beside a smaller throne similarly draped in saffron cloth and bearing a miniature painting of Man Singh. The two images, framed as they are by royal trappings, trace the line of descent through three generations of Jodha Rathore kings and obfuscate both the subject of Takht’s Singh’s adoption and Jaswant Singh’s and his father’s notoriously troubled relationship, which was characterized by frequent power struggles.37 37

Singh, House of Marwar, 123–24.

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Jaswant Thara: The “Taj of Jodhpur” and the Memorialized Jodha Rathores under the Raj I have compared my sketch design [of the late Maharaja Jaswant Singh II] … with that of her Gracious Majesty the Late Queen Victoria’s marble statue at Rajkot … at Ahmedabad … at Bombay and many other statues prepared by European and American artists … avoiding Gothic, Roman, and Egyptian style, I have prepared my design after pure Indian ancient and modern styles, which will be an adapting beauty to the magnificent building, the “Taj of Jodhpur,” as there is no such marble building in the whole of Rajasthan. (Letter from Keshav Rao Sadashiv, head sculptor of Jaswant Thara, 190338)

In 1895, Mahārājā Jaswant Singh II was cremated on a plateau on a rocky escarpment near Mehrangarh. (Fig. 4.20) His cenotaph inaugurated the dynasty’s third and current chatrī bagh. The Naths had fallen from royal favor after Man Singh’s death, which may explain why the particular style of memorial associated with them was abandoned after Takht Singh’s. Jaswant Singh II is memorialized through a chatrī with a different form, decoration, and material than those of his ancestors at Mandore. Carved exclusively of white marble and resting on a red-sandstone base, the chatrī is square-planned and flat roofed. Successive generations of Jodha Rathore kings are memorialized at the site through nearly identical chatrīs. However, it is not the chatrīs that command attention at the necropolis so much as Jaswant Thara (Fig. 4.21),39 a monumental memorial to the Jodha Rathore kings that is neither a cenotaph, nor the marker of a site of cremation. Mahārājā Sardar Singh (r. 1895–1911), Jaswant Singh’s son and heir, commissioned the building in memory of his father in 1899. It was completed in 1911. Towering over the adjacent chatrīs, Jaswant Thara rests on a red-sandstone base and is clad in luminous white marble from quarries in Makrana.40 The building materials, foliated arches, chajjās, jālīs, baluster columns, and deco­ rative chatrīs, as well as its char bagh and fountains, are culled from Mughal architectural traditions. Court documents discuss at length the intended pres-

38 39

40

PWD, File 271, “Marble Cenotaph Building,” 69. Although referred to as a thaṛa, the building is neither a cenotaph, nor does it share formal qualities with the funerary thaṛas of Mahārājās Man Singh or Takht Singh at Mandore. PWD, File 271, “Marble Cenotaph Building,” 11.

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figure 4.20

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Chatrī of Jaswant Singh II of Marwar, Jaswant Thaṛa necropolis, Jodhpur

ence of a gūmbāz (dome),41 which would have heightened the building’s Mughalized appearance. For reasons undocumented, the dome was ultimately substituted with a phāṁsanā-style tiered superstructure more typical of north 41

That these early memos specifically refer to a gūmbāz, rather than a temple-style tower, indicates that the original plan was to have a dome over the memorial, thus stressing the association with the Taj Mahal (ibid., 41, 46).

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Jaswant Thaṛa, the Jodha Rathore dynastic memorial shrine, early-twentieth century, Jodhpur

Indian temple maṇḍapas. While Jaswant Thara displays a number of features ultimately traceable to Mughal architecture, the building’s original audience probably associated these less with the bygone Mughal Empire than with India’s new imperial power, the British Raj. British colonial architects developed the Indo-Saracenic style, which appropriated heavily from Mughal monuments. By the late nineteenth century, this style was widely favored both by the Raj and it royal feudatories. In 1818, Mahārājā Man Singh, like many other Indian rulers, entered into a treaty with the British East India Company to expel the Marathas and restore peace in his state. In 1858, under Takht Singh, Marwar and the other Rajput states were incorporated into the British Empire and the Rajput kings became semiautonomous, tribute-paying feudatories. The late-nineteenth to earlytwentieth centuries were times of great development in many of the Indian princely states, particularly in the fields of technology, education, and art. Several rulers, such as Sawai Madho Singh II of Jaipur and Sardar Singh of Marwar, traveled to Europe and also cultivated personal and political ties with the Raj residents in their states, as well as the imperial viceroys. As Ajit Singh’s alliance with the Sisodias inspired a memorial style that strongly referenced Mewar, its glorious past and rulers, so Mahārājās Jaswant Singh II and Sardar Singh

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announced their commitment to their new allies by commissioning several buildings in Jodhpur in the Indo-Saracenic style.42 In 1861 the British colonial government established the Archaeological Survey of India, which was dedicated to excavating, classifying, and cataloguing India’s material heritage. By the end of the century, the Raj had appointed British consulting architects and engineers throughout the allied states. Some, such Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob in Jaipur and G.J. O’Brien in Jodhpur, dispatched British and Indian designers, artists, and architects to make studies of “rediscovered” Indian monuments, particularly Indo-Islamic examples, which they deemed the finest expressions of Indian architecture.43 Jacob compiled these drawings in his twelve-volume reference book Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details, first published in 1890. These endeavors resulted in the for­mation of the hybrid Indo-Saracenic style, which appropriated from disparate international traditions—neoclassical, Gothic revival, Moorish Spanish—and from Indian ones, predominately sultanate and Mughal. As with Rāṇā Kumbha’s Maru-Gurjara renaissant style, Indo-Saracenic buildings are not facsimiles of any singular structure. They incorporate and at times reinterpret features from a wide array of buildings throughout the subcontinent. The Indian monument that most captivated British imagination and admiration was the Taj Mahal. George Curzon, viceroy of India from 1898 to 1905, is responsible for directing colonial appreciation and preservation efforts to the 42

43

Giles Tillotson downplays the imperialistic messages of the Indo-Saracenic style, claiming that some of its early proponents were attempting to create a new style of architecture that was based on Indian models, making it appropriate to the climate and familiar to the colonized subjects (“Orientalizing the Raj: Indo-Saracenic Fantasies,” in Architecture in Victorian and Edwardian India, ed. Christopher W. London (Mumbai: Marg, 1994), 15–34). Tillotson also asserts that this enabled the style to be polysemic: “Indo-Saracenic architecture was both ‘imperial’ and ‘local’ at once, and so carried for the Indian patron an advantage that might now be called ‘double-coding.’ It was an officially sanctioned imperial style with a veneer of Indian identity, so a ruler might expect it to resonate better with his subjects as well as with his imperial masters” (“Palaces and the Politics of Style,” in Maharaja: The Splendour, 182). Beginning with James Fergusson, early colonial scholars grouped Indian architecture into religious categories. British colonial officials were largely disparaging of the so-called Hindu style, favoring the Saracenic (i.e., Islamic) characterized by domes and arches. Their appropriation of these features in their own buildings in India communicated that the Raj was not only the Mughals’ political successor in India but also heir to earlier empires, namely the Roman and Byzantine, whose features these buildings similarly display—features that were also in accordance with European Renaissance ideals of beauty, to which the British subscribed. See Thomas Metcalf, “Architecture and the Representation of Empire: India, 1860–1910,” Representations 6 (Spring 1984): 37–65.

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Mughal tomb and establishing it as the preeminent Indian building in the popular esteem.44 Curzon’s greatest homages to the Taj Mahal were his extensive relandscaping of its garden and his commission of the Victoria Memorial Hall in Calcutta, begun in 1906. The Victoria Memorial’s Makrana-marble-clad exterior, central dome, small decorative chatrīs on its four corners, monumental īwan entrances, and modified char bagh are all nods to the tomb, while features such as its Ionic columns were appropriated from the neoclassical tradition. Although Jaswant Thara was begun five years before the Victoria Memorial Hall, and completed nearly a decade sooner, construction of the two monuments overlapped chronologically. In light of their close ties with the Raj, the Jodha Rathores would surely have been aware of British admiration of the Taj Mahal and Curzon’s plans for the Victoria Memorial. It is therefore easy to imagine that the Taj’s sway over the British influenced Jaswant Thara. As indicated by the letter excerpted above, written in 1903 by Jaswant Thara’s head sculptor, Keshav Rao Sadashiv, the Taj Mahal was the site of memory from which the Jodha Rathores appropriated elements of their final large-scale memorial. As Santhi Kavuri-Bauer has examined, by the period of high imperialism in India, Mughal monuments, especially the Taj Mahal, had become polyvalent lieux de mémoire with different significations to Indian Muslims, nationalists, and the Raj.45 To an audience supportive of empire, the Taj Mahal signified quality and perfection, as well as the colonial power that restored it, and, as a corollary, for colonized royal subjects’ who appropriated from it, their privileged position within the new imperial orbit. Documentation on Jaswant Thara’s planning and construction is silent on the subject of Taj Mahal’s original patron: the Mughal emperor. Curzon’s renovation drastically altered the tomb’s gardens, leaving a permanent colonial impression. By appropriating from Indo-Islamic traditions in their own commissions in India, the British presented themselves as the Mughals’ successors and India’s new master. Thus under Curzon’s efforts, the Raj claimed India’s built past and established the Taj as a colonial monument as much as a Mughal one.46 Little textual documentation exists on architectural activities in the Rajput kingdoms prior to the colonial period. The situation changed significantly after 44

45 46

Derek Linstrum, “The Last of the Augustans: Lord Curzon and Indian Architecture,” Marg 49, no. 2 (1997): 8. Santhi Kavuri-Bauer, Monumental Matters: The Power, Subjectivity, and Space of India’s Mughal Architecture (Durham: Duke University, 2011), 49–76. Kavuri-Bauer, Monumental Matters, 49–76. Ibid., 72.

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the establishment of the Raj. The Crown assumed control of the state and the princes’ personal funds, and founded a Public Works Department (PWD) bureau in each kingdom to approve and oversee large-scale building and renovation projects. This produced a bureaucratic paper trail now housed in archives throughout Rajasthan. Letters between members of the Raj, the Rajput darbārs, and workshops within the princely states, such as Sadashiv’s, provide valuable insight into the stylistic decisions that informed Rajput colonial buildings. They also shed light on their intended messages; Jaswant Thara appears to have been meant, initially, as much as a monument to the Jodha Rathores’ allegiance to the Raj as to the glory of their own ancestors. As with most contemporaneous monuments throughout the Indian princely states, Jaswant Thara was a joint venture between the local colonial ­gov­ernment and the Marwar darbār. A central figure in Marwar’s colonial modernization program was Sir Pratap Singh, Sardar Singh’s uncle, who served as regent until the king came of age. Given Sir Pratap’s central role at court, his close relations with the British, and the number of PWD files associated with the construction of Indo-Saracenic style buildings, it is not surprising that his name features frequently in the Jaswant Thara files and that his approval was often sought. The PWD files meticulously detail the material, construction, and labor costs, all of which were borne, not by the empire, but by the Marwar darbār, and, we are told, approved by the state resident and higher ranks of the Raj. Documents also preserve the names of those responsible for major aspects of the construction. In addition to Sadashiv, the project was overseen by the British state engineer, G.J. O’Brien. Originally, as Sadashiv indicates, a portrait sculpture of Jaswant Singh II, enthroned under a marble canopy, was to be installed in Jaswant Thara.47 He also notes that the statue was to be based on those of Queen Victoria and photorealistic in style. He even requests photographs of the late mahārājā from the court’s collection (specifically one taken by a British photographer—to guarantee its quality) so his work will be lifelike.48 At the same time, Sadashiv ­emphatically asserts that the work will be “Indian” and devoid of European 47 48

PWD, File 271, “Marble Cenotaph Building,” 41, 46. PWD, File 271, “Marble Cenotaph Building,” 60, 64. It is noteworthy that Sadashiv’s concern with his sculpture’s photorealistic depiction of its subject reflects painting and photographic trends in portraiture at the end of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries throughout princely India. The aesthetic and aims of artists working for royal patrons shifted away from traditional depictions of the king, which attempted not so much true likenesses as highly idealized ones surrounded by visual metaphors and icons of kingship. Vishakha N. Desai, “Timeless Symbols: Royal Portraits from Rajasthan, 17th–19th Centuries,” in The Idea of Rajasthan.

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influence. Imagination will have to suffice in answering the question of how these qualities might manifest in a single sculpture, as it was never made. As with the design of the building, the intended installation very much reflects contemporaneous trends in the colonized Indian courts. In addition to the architectural Victoria Memorial Hall, dozens of monumental, photo-realistic, white-marble or bronze portrait sculptures of the Queen Empress, enthroned under a canopy, were erected throughout India in the late-nineteenth century. As for the Indo-Saracenic-style buildings, funding for the Victoria memorial statues was largely supplied by local rulers, thereby communicating their support of the empress and her government.49 The Victoria memorial sculptures in turn inspired several pro-Raj Indian rulers to commission similar portrait sculptures of their immediate ancestors. Mahā­ rājās Ganga Singh of Bikaner and Madho Rao Scindia of Gwalior commissioned portrait sculptures of their predecessors that, like many Victoria portraits, are crowned by the umbrella of an architectonic Gothic-style canopy. As with the chatrīs, these public commissions conveyed legitimizing messages both to the rulers’ subjects and to high-ranking members of the Raj. The message was twofold, drawing attention to the royal house’s association with the imperial power and the patron’s line of descent. The latter was reiterated through the epigraphs etched on the bases of the memorials. The proposed portrait sculpture of Jaswant Singh II for the Jaswant Thara was rooted in these current Indian memorialization practices. Sadashiv’s assertion that “I have prepared my design after pure Indian ancient and modern styles” raises the question of specifically which Indian sculptures, from this vast chronological scope, he employed as models. His endeavor to make his work irrefutably Indian, devoid of foreign influences, is moored in contemporaneous aesthetic debates regarding the evaluation of Indian art and appropriate sources of influence for contemporary Indian artists. At the time Sadashiv wrote his letter, the Indo-Saracenic, with its conspicuous appropriation of Indian elements, was emerging as the favored colonial style, replacing the Gothic and neoclassical. At the same time, Orientalist and nationalist debates about the merits of Indian art were also taking place. During the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, figures such as the Sri Lankan–English art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy and the English art teacher, administrator, and critic E.B.  Havell ardently campaigned for a reappraisal of Indian art on its own terms rather than by European standards, which had defined and, they claimed, 49

Mary Ann Steggles, “The Myth of the Monuments: Public Commemorative Statues,” Marg 46, no. 1 (September 1994): 131–39.

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misunderstood Indian art. Havell, who was superintendent of the government’s Madras School of Art and then the Calcutta School of Art, also encouraged Indian art students to find inspiration in works of precolonial Indian art rather than the classical European models that had hitherto served as the basis of their education. Significantly, a major focus of Coomaraswamy’s and Havell’s praise for Indian art was what they perceived as its inherent spirituality.50 Their championing of Indian art helped shape the aims of the nationalist painters of the Bengal School in the early twentieth century, who actively took inspiration from Mughal paintings and the murals at the Ajanta Caves. The PWD files on the Jaswant Thara offer no information on Sadashiv’s origins or where he received his artistic training. However, as a PWD employee, he almost certainly attended one of India’s many colonial art colleges. As indicated by his letter, he was not unaware of these aesthetic debates, how they shaped contemporary artists, and that many Indians and Raj officials were beginning to look at Indian art with fresh eyes. Finally, Sadashiv’s comment “there is no such marble building in the whole of Rajasthan” appears to reveal his knowledge of current artistic developments. There was, in fact, already such a building in Rajasthan, one that eclipses Jaswant Thara in scale, decoration, and fame. This was the Albert Hall Museum in Jaipur, built under Mahārājās Sawai Ram Singh and Sawai Madho Singh II. ­Designed by the colonial architect Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob and completed in 1887, the towering Indo-Saracenic building was visited by over a quarter of a million people in 1898, the majority of whom were Rajasthani.51 Sadashiv simply could not have been unaware of its existence. Rather, his statement probably indicates his and the other artists’ pride in their construction and a sense of competition between them and the artists of the nearby Jaipur court. Finally, Sadashiv’s note of marble is also telling. While the Albert Hall Museum is built of light, buff-colored stone, likely in imitation of marble, the Jaswant Thara is clad externally and internally in this semi-precious luxury material, which Sadashiv seems to suggest, makes the latter superior. Sadashiv, O’Brien and others involved in the design and planning of the Jaswant Thara may have also been competing with two additional royal Kachhwaha structures designed 50

51

Tapati Guha-Thakurta, “Orientalism and the New Claims for Indian Art: The Ideas of Havell, Coomaraswamy, Okakura and Nivdeta,” in The Making of a New ‘Indian’ Art: Artists, Aesthetics and Nationalism in Bengal, c. 1850–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 146–85. Giles Tillotson, “The Jaipur Exhibition of 1883,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 14, no. 2 (July 2004): 123.

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Interior of Jaswant Thaṛa. Jaswant Singh II’s portrait is central, flanked by two generations of his successors

by Jacob- the chatrīs of Mahārājās Jai Singh and Ram Singh at Gaitor, the latter of which was also designed by Jacob. While constructed of marble, the memorials of the Kachhwaha kings are dwarfed by the Jodha Rathore example, lending credence to Sadashiv’s assertion that “… there is no such marble building in the whole of Rajasthan.” For reasons not elaborated in extant documentation, plans for the lifelike portrait sculpture of Jaswant Singh II were abandoned and instead a framed photograph of the king (Fig. 4.22) is now enthroned on a gaddī and draped in saffron textiles, along the back wall of the memorial hall. It is likely that a

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Interior of Jaswant Thaṛa. Portrait photographs of the present king’s father and grandfather are draped in saffron textiles and enthroned in the center of the hall.

portrait sculpture was deemed an inappropriate mode, given that none of the previous rulers of Marwar had been memorialized through sculptures. The media is reserved for deified heroes. The central photograph at Jaswant Thara is flanked by similarly installed portrait photographs of the late mahārājā’s immediate successor, Sardar Singh, and his grandson, Mahārājā Sumer Singh (r. 1911–18). Two additional gaddīs (Fig. 4.23) are housed in the hall and offer similar saffron-colored-textile-draped portrait photographs of the next two generations of Jodha Rathore rulers, concluding with Hanwant Singh (r. 1947–52), father of the current Mahārājā, Gaj Singh II. Marwar’s generations of previous rulers, from Rao Sheo (the first Rathore to settle in Marwar) to Takht Singh, are accounted for in painted portraits hung sequentially on the walls of the memorial hall. The portrait cycle in Jaswant Thara is echoed in the audience halls of several Rajput palaces, and in Mehrangarh an assemblage of portraits nearly identical to the one in Jaswant Thara is found in the Phool Mahal private audience hall. In both spaces all members of the Jodha Rathore dynasty are present in a virtual assembly. Gaj Singh joins his ancestors and performs his role as the dynasty’s living representative when he

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conducts memorial ceremonies in Jaswant Thara or presides over the darbār in the Phool Mahal. The portrait installations in both spaces have correlates in royal Rajput vaṃśāvlī genealogies and large-scale scrolls with sequentially ordered portraits of each king. As Cynthia Talbot explains, these textual and visual modes of documentation chart the succession of the state’s rulers from one generation to the next, and from as far back in time as possible, to the living king. The further back a king charts his ancestry, the more stable and legitimate his own rule appears.52 As in the genealogical portrait scrolls, the portraits in Rajput darbārs and in Jaswant Thara are labeled with the subject’s name and regnal dates. Their personalities and achievements are unimportant. Emphasized alone, and conveying a sense of continuous political authority, is the unbroken line of office.

Conclusion

During the course of the late-sixteenth to early-twentieth centuries, the Jodha Rathores made, severed, and at times denied alliances with external powers. Each of these relationships impacted the dynasty’s memorial traditions, leading it to appropriate from a range of lieux de mémoire: local Pratihara temples, Sisodia Maru-Gurjara renaissant architecture, Nath temples, and the Taj Mahal. Each of these varied architectural forms of the Jodha Rathores’ memorials is an index of its patron’s contemporaneous political ideologies, ultimately making their tradition of funerary art the most diverse, over time, among all the Rajput courts. While change over time is a distinguishing feature of the Jodha Rathores’ cenotaphs, morphological continuity characterizes those of the Bika Rathores, the subject of the following chapter. This dynasty was established in the fifteenth century, when Bika, one of the younger sons of Rao Jodha of Marwar, left his father’s court to found the independent state of Bikaner. Unlike their parent dynasty, the Bika Rathores allied with and remained loyal to the Mughals. Accordingly, Mughal elements feature prominently in Bika Rathore painting, palace, and funerary architecture. The Bika Rathore cenotaphs are distinct from those discussed in the previous chapters in that they contain centrally placed steles with figural sculptures and lengthy epigraphs. While in Marwari architectural forms announce the memorialized king and his successor’s political authority, the royal chatrīs in Bikaner express this through text and images on steles. 52

Talbot, “The Mewar Court’s Construction of History,” 18.

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Devi Kund Sagar: The Iconography of Satī and Its Absence in Bikaner’s Chatrīs In the windswept desert several miles south of Bikaner city, capital of the former state of the same name, is the royal Bika Rathore chatrī bagh, Devi Kund Sagar (Fig. 5.1). Its chatrīs present a sharp contrast with those of the Jodha Rathores. While the most conspicuous feature of the latter is a morphological instability that testifies to the dynasty’s inconsistent foreign relations, the Bika Rathores, who split from the Jodha Rathores and founded the kingdom of ­Bikaner in the fifteenth century, memorialize their royals with surprising architectural consistency. While there is some variation in their individual features and plans, the Devi Kund Sagar cenotaphs are, with only one exception, open, pillared, and domed in the typical chatrī manner. Moreover, their domes are remarkably similar—a trait that can be traced to the sweeping building and restoration projects instituted by Mahārājā Ganga Singh (r. 1888–1943). Unlike the Kachhwaha, Naruka, and Jodha Rathore chatrīs, which are all now empty, each royal Bika Rathore chatrī shelters a devalī centrally placed under its dome. And while the forms of the chatrīs are consistent, each devalī is unique and personalized. The steles’ detailed, low-relief friezes and epigraphs present the memorialized kings and their satīs as gendered Rajput paradigms. This iconographic and epigraphic program, however, underwent a sudden, radical shift in the early nineteenth century when, in response to the growing British influence in their states, the Rajputs were pressured to discontinue satī and refashion other aspects of their dharm and public identity. With this erosion of their autonomy—and particularly the prohibition of satī, which had been one of their strongest funerary traditions—the Bika Rathores were compelled to devise new visual expressions of legitimacy and authority in their chatrīs. The first section of this chapter examines the iconographies of the gendered paradigms of satī and martial Rajput kingship in Bika Rathore funerary art and how they were redefined under Mahārājā Surat Singh in the early colonial period. In addition to refashioning his dynastic identity in the face of encroaching British hegemony, Surat Singh skillfully ensured that his daughter-in-law, Princess Deep Kunwar, who became Bikaner’s final satī, was posthumously deified. She is still worshipped at Devi Kund Sagar today.

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figure 5.1 Devi Kund Sagar, the Bika Rathore necropolis, Bikaner

The chapter’s second section situates Ganga Singh’s chatrī restorations within the colonial milieu in which he ruled and reads them against his other architectural commissions. In his extensive study on Indo-Saracenic architecture, Thomas Metcalf identifies Ganga Singh as an ideal colonial royal subject, a “model prince” who was both “liberal” (modern) and “conservative” (i.e., a traditional Rajput ruler), and employs this dual identity as a lens through which to examine the various Indo-Saracenic architectural projects Ganga Singh commissioned in his capital.1 Metcalf concludes that Ganga Singh was pliant in face of the dictates of the Raj, passively allowing, and even participating in, its rebuilding of his capital, his residence, and his identity. However, his chatrī restorations suggest that he was also an assertive agent, and that the dutiful colonial subject and “model prince” were only two aspects of his polyvalent public identity. His restored chatrīs aggrandize his forbearers and present them as equals, if not superior to, the British. Ganga Singh was of course not the first Rajput ruler to subvert imperial power, at least visually, through his chatrī commissions. We have seen, for example, how Rājā Udai Singh commissioned a renaissant-style deval for his father to belie his own alliance with the 1 Thomas Metcalf, An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain’s Raj (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 122–29.

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Mughals and present Marwar under his rule as a revival of an autonomous golden age. Ganga Singh may have had a more recent model to draw from, one that was also closer to home: his great-grandfather, Surat Singh.

The Mughal Model

Bikaner was founded in 1465. Realizing that, as Rao Jodha’s sixth son, he stood little chance of ever ruling his home state of Marwar, Rao Bika (r. 1465–1504) broke from the Jodhpur darbār and established an independent kingdom. In 1490 he returned to Marwar to pillage the legitimacy-conferring royal heirlooms and insignia of Rathore kingship: a sandalwood throne; an image of the Rathore kul devī, Nagnechi Ma; fly whisks; weapons; and an umbrella. These fabled objects were said to have been brought with the Rathores to Marwar, from Kannauj, in the early thirteenth century.2 Symbols of kingship (several of which are still on display at Junagarh Fort), they situate Rao Bika and his descendants within the Rathore royal lineage and convey their worthiness to govern an independent kingdom. It is impossible to know if Rao Bika also brought with him from Marwar the practice of chatrī construction, and if so, what forms and decorative programs the first memorials employed. This is largely because Mahārājā Ganga Singh extensively, and in some cases entirely, reconstructed all the Bikaner chatrīs and their devalīs in the early-twentieth century. Ganga Singh is consequently the most significant figure in his state’s chatrī tradition. Like the Kachhwahas of Amber and Jaipur, the Bika Rathores enjoyed immense financial and political benefits from their fealty, first to the Mughals and then to the British. Also like the Kachhwahas, the Bika Rathores’ alliances with these two empires impacted their art. In 1570, under Rao Kalyanmal (r. 1541– 71), the Bika Rathores were among the first Rajput dynasties to ally with the Mughals, a relationship the rao cemented by offering his daughter in marriage to Akbar.3 Kalyan Singh’s son and heir, Rājā Rai Singh (r. 1571–1611), was Akbar’s brother-in-law and one of the most distinguished generals in the Mughal army. Akbar conferred the title of rājā upon him and appointed him manṣabdār of four thousand, a number later increased to five thousand under Jahangir. We have seen how the similarly pro-Mughal Rājā Man Singh of Amber appropriated the empire’s forms, features, and building materials for his fort and temple 2 Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 315. 3 Beveridge, trans., Akbarnama, 159, 518.

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figure 5.2 Junagarh, the Bika Rathores’ second fort, begun under Rājā Rai Singh in the late-sixteenth century, Bikaner. Photograph courtesy of Giles Tillotson.

commissions. Rājā Rai Singh was certainly acquainted with Man Singh through the imperial darbārs and military service: they both served in Attock in 1573 against the Pathans,4 and again in 1576 in Mewar against Rāṇā Pratap.5 It is easy to imagine these two Rajput kings, who spent somuch time at the Mughal court and were thus well versed in Mughal ceremonial, performances of legitimacy, and arts, discussing their own commissions, which in both cases were prolific and borrowed freely from the Mughals. Between 1588 and 1596, Rai Singh began a new fort-palace, Junagarh, in his capital (Fig. 5.2). Of all the Rajput forts, Junagarh most closely adheres to Mughal models. Like the Mughal forts in Delhi, Agra, and Lahore, it is situated on flat ground (Rajput fort-palaces typically occupy a rocky escarpment), and its exclusively red-sandstone exterior and predominantly white-marble interior and sandstone curtain wall are more evocative of Mughal fort commissions than other Rajput examples. Like Man Singh’s buildings in the Amber Fort, Junagarh’s Mughalized features announce Rai Singh’s elite status and urbane familiarity with imperial spaces. This emulation of Mughal styles was furthered by later generations of Bika Rathores. For example, Anup Singh (r. 1669–98), upon whom Aurangzeb conferred the title mahārājā for his success in the 4 Erskine, Rajputana Gazetteer, 317. 5 Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 474.

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Deccan, commissioned Junagarh Fort’s Karan Mahal (public-audience hall) in about 1690.6 As with Shah Jahan’s audience halls, its focal point is a throne alcove defined by foliated arches and supported by baluster columns. Nearly four centuries later, Ganga Singh would assert his allegiance to the new imperial power through his embrace of the Indo-Saracenic style for his own fort, Lallgarh. Junagarh’s distinctly Mughal appearance may also be attributed to its builders. Akbar dispatched members of the Usta family, originally from Herat, Afghanistan, whose hereditary vocation was painting (mural and on paper) and stone carving, to oversee Junagarh’s construction and decoration. Later generations of the family built Ganga Singh’s palace.7 If the Bika Rathores had not already begun the practice of memorializing their ancestors through permanent architectural structures, the Ustas may have introduced the tradition from the Mughal court when they arrived. Whether Bikaner’s chatrī tradition may be attributed to them or not, the Ustas have built all the Bika Rathore chatrīs since the first, which commemorates Rao Kalyan and was commissioned by Rai Singh. The Bika Rathores were similarly receptive to Mughal influences in their painting. During the seventeenth century, the dynasty’s atelier produced paintings that are frequently identified, among all the Rajput painting schools, as the most conspicuously Mughal in terms of subject matter, style, and color. Scholars such as Vishakha N. Desai attribute these pronounced Mughal elements to the Bika Rathores’ cultural association with and political support of the empire.8 Molly Aitken’s work complicates the issue of Mughal influence in Bikaner painting, identifying it not as a sign of passive acceptance but as the result of well-informed choices on the part of the painters and their patrons.9 She highlights how painters in the Bikaner atelier, such as the Ustas, were masters both of Mughal and mārga (Sanskrit: “universal”; i.e., Rajasthani) styles. At times these two idioms were blended in a single painting, while at others one or the other dominated: Mughal in portraits and historical paintings, mārga in religious, courtly, and literary subjects. In her recent study of early-seventeenth 6 Goetz, Art and Architecture of Bikaner, 72. 7 Interview with Zahar-ud-din Usta, who is a descendant of the stonecutters Akbar sent to the Bikaner court (August 30, 2006). 8 “Painting and Politics and Seventeenth Century India: Mewar and Bikaner in the Mughal World,” Art Journal (New Approaches to Indian Art) 49, no. 4 (1990), 370–78. See also “Timeless Symbols: Royal Portraits from Rajasthan,” in which Desai considers how various Rajput painters negotiated Rajput and Mughal sensibilities and aesthetics, and how this made the Rajput royal portraits fundamentally different. 9 The Intelligence of Tradition, 26–35.

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century preparatory materials and completed paintings, particularly those compiled in the well-known Laud rāgamālā album, Aitken analyzes how relationships between Mughal courtiers, Rājā Rai Singh among them, enabled these two painting styles to circulate between the imperial, subimperial Mughal, and Rajput ateliers.10 Aitken’s work on Bika Rathore painting is relevant in the context of the dynasty’s chatrīs as it emphasizes the patrons’ deliberate stylistic decisions and networks of influence.

Gendered Paradigms in Bika Rathore Funerary Art

While only posthumously deified Jodha Rathore warriors are commemorated through devalīs (either in chatrīs or atop chabūtrās) and represented on those steles by the icon of a mounted warrior attended by one or more satīs, from the foundation of their independent state, the Bika Rathores adopted the practice of commemorating all royal and aristocratic males with devalīs bearing relief portraits of the deceased, regardless of his posthumous status (devtā or simply pitr). The archival files from Ganga Singh’s chatrī-restoration program mention only the architectural structures and are silent on the subject of the devalīs enshrined within them. However, it is evident from the clarity of the lines articulating the figures and inscriptions that nearly all the extant devalīs are twentieth-century restorations. The depiction of costumes and language of the inscriptions are contemporaneous with the deceased’s historical era, indicating the sculptors’ attempts to faithfully recreate the originals. The earliest royal devalī in Bikaner, Rao Bika’s (Figs 5.3, 5.4), was to set the standard maintained until the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It was then that the British prohibition of satī fundamentally altered Rajput funerary practice and the iconographic programs of the Bika Rathore memorials. Bika’s chatrī is located, along with those of three generations of his suc­ cessors, in Bikaner’s first fort, Bika ji kī Tekri, to the south of Bika’s original city.11 10 11

“The Laud Rāgamālā Album: Bikaner, and the Sociability of Sub-imperial Painting,” Archives of Asian Art 63, no. 1 (2013), 36. It is unclear why these chatrīs are located in the old fort. This is anomalous within Hindu funerary practice, where death and cremation are regarded as spiritually polluting and thus segregated from spaces of habitation. Considering the southern location of Bika ji kī Tekri, which is also the Hindu direction associated with death, Bikaner’s first śmaśān may have originally been located nearby. It is likely that when Lalgarh, the capitol’s second fort, was constructed in the late-sixteenth century under Rājā Rai Singh and the court shifted, memorials to his predecessors were erected within the fort, and were later refurbished under Ganga Singh’s rule.

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figure 5.3 The chatrī of Rao Bika of Bikaner, built under Mahārājā Ganga Singh in the early-twentieth century

The devalī is divided into three registers: the bottom offers a lengthy inscription; the middle, a relief of four women standing with their hands held in añjali mudrā (a respectful gesture of holding the palms together); and the upper register offers a relief of Bika as a mounted warrior holding a sword and crowned by an umbrella. Two females, his satīs, stand before him while another, behind the horse, holds the royal umbrella. As is common in Rajput funerary steles throughout north and central India, Rao Bika is flanked by images of the sun and moon. Writing in relation to Mughal and Rajput paintings, scholars have posited that these icons signify the

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figure 5.4 Rao Bika’s devalī

Rajputs’ dynastic heritage as either Suryavanshi or Chandravanshi and, as a corollary, their omnipotence and legitimacy. Catherine Glynn asserts that their conjunction in Mughal and Mughal-influenced Rajput paintings communicates that the subject was “regarded as master of day and night, the overseer of the world.”12 However, this iconography probably has an additional and older layer of meaning in Rajput funerary art. It features on the devalīs carved prior 12

Catherine Glynn, “A Rājasthānī Princely Album: Rājput Patronage of Mughal-Style Painting,” Artibus Asiae 60, no. 2 (2000). William Noble and Ad Ram Sankhyan posit that the sun and moon icons on the Rajput devalīs have a different symbolic function; the former representing the male principle, the latter, female (“Signs of the Divine,” 348).

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to the Mughal era, such as one in the Sri Bangur Government Museum in Pali (formerly part of Marwar) dating to the late thirteenth century and others discovered near Bikaner, and now in the Ganga Singh Museum, dating to the early-sixteenth century. We may even wonder if, given that they were so well versed in and receptive to Rajput art and culture, the early Mughals might have appropriated these signs from the Rajputs’ visual vocabulary of kingship. In addition to signifying the memorialized male’s worldly might, an equally viable reading of the sun and moon icons in Rajput funerary art are as visual references to Hindu marriage vows, which specify that “as long as there is sun and moon this couple will remain together.” The inclusion of the icons on the devalīs, particularly those depicting satīs, would be particularly apt, as the act of satī is believed to ensure the married couple’s union in heaven for eternity, or “as long as there is sun and moon.”13 This interpretation of the sun and moon icons on Rajput devalīs as references to Hindu marriage and the eternal union of the couple through the satī’s self-sacrifice is critical to an understanding of how the steles promote archetypal gendered Rajput behaviors. As discussed in the introduction, male Rajputs were expected to be, according to the dharm of their jātiī, valiant and martial. Rajput women were also expected to be brave and dedicated to their husband’s welfare. Prior to the colonial period, these gendered expectations prompted countless Rajput women who outlived their husbands to become satīs. Further parallels between satī and marriage are found in the traditional Hindu bridal attire worn by the satī-to-be. The satī goes to her husband’s pyre dressed as a bride, complete with sōlah śringār and henna, whereas Hindu widows traditionally wear no adornments or makeup and only austere clothing for the rest of their lives. Finally, the dozens of Rajasthani Hindus of various castes with whom I spoke made a sharp distinction between a satī and a widow. They were emphatic that a satī is not a widow, as the satī’s act is believed to reunite her with her husband in heaven. The inscription in Sanskritized Marwari on the lower register of Bika’s devalī provides basic biographical information, including the Rao’s birth and death dates. It explicitly asserts that he was “of the Rathore clan” and confirms the fact by including the names of his parents. The inscription further informs us that seven women became satīs on his pyre: two dharm patnīyān (true wives)— these are the two female figures depicted with their hands joined in front of 13

See Shakuntala Narasimhan for Hindu textual sources that sanction satī and promise that the act expunged both the woman and her husband of their sins, guaranteeing their union in paradise for eternity (Sati: Widow Burning in India, 18). See also Andrea Major, “Sati in Ancient India,” in Sati: A Historical Anthology.

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their husband on the upper register—and five bhōg patnīyān (literally “lesser wives,” or concubines). The female figure holding the umbrella behind the Rao is identifiable through her simple attire (she wears an oṛnī, or veil, over her head, rather than a crown like the others) as likely the lowest-ranking satī, perhaps a servant or non-Rajput wife. The satīs’ natal states and statuses are noted in the inscription. And it also informs us that Bika founded a new kingdom— carefully noting that it was done with his father’s permission!—and was a brave warrior.14 At the moment of the foundation of their autonomous kingdom, Rao Bika and his immediate successors were confronted (as Pratap Singh Naruka, the first ruler of Alwar had been) with an inherently paradoxical challenge. While lineage confers political legitimacy within the Rajput system, the early Bika Rathores would have been at pains to express their independence and distance themselves from their parent house. The early Bika Rathores’ visual language of kingship addresses both issues. The royal insignia Bika looted from Jodhpur serve as material testimony to his illustrious lineage and legitimacy. The visual and textual programs of the early Bikaner devalīs concomitantly embrace and obfuscate the issue of the Bika Rathores’ descent from the Jodha Rathores. They communicate the severing of ties with the Marwar court and establish that a new independent dynasty begins with Rao Bika. The epigraphic program on Bika’s devalī acknowledges and draws attention to his Rathore lineage and his descent from the mighty Jodha. It also proclaims that he founded his own state with his father’s blessing, thereby subverting any question of sedition and eliding the subject of the subsequent inter-Rathore skirmishes that were to characterize Rajput history for several generations.15 Memorialized Bika Rathores are presented figuratively on their devalīs in a highly idealized manner. Regardless of their age at the time of death, they are immortalized in the prime of youth, as brave and virile, confirmed by the presence of a prominently displayed sword. Turban styles and other elements of costume are rendered in meticulous detail, making the identification of the historical era, and thus the subject, possible. Although satī was an integral component of the Jodha Rathores’ and Kach­ hwahas’ funerary traditions, no visual reference is made to it in their cenotaphs. In those dynasties’ memorial traditions, satī is recorded through the 14 15

Rajendra Prasad Vyas Churuwalla, Bīkāner ke Śilā Lekh: Ek Etihāsik Adhyayan,1517–2028 VS (Bikaner: Parmanand, 1990), 3. The early rulers of Bikaner frequently fought over land with their Rajput relatives in Marwar. Karni Singh, The Relations of the House of Bikaner with the Central Powers (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1973), 31–37.

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indexical sign of a woman’s handprints left on the fort gates as she led the fune­ rary cortege to the cremation ground; in court records; or, less commonly, in inscriptions on the memorials. By contrast, satīs receive pronounced visual and textual emphasis in the Bika Rathore chatrīs constructed before the midnineteenth century. The visual topoi of the mounted warrior and his satīs, and the careful recording of satī in the epigraphic programs on the devalīs, was likely informed by a perceived need among the early Bika Rathores’ to legitimize their new dynasty and express their authority as independent sovereigns. The Rajput male paradigm is the martyred warrior who dies on the battlefield, and the satī is the hero’s female counterpart. Just as the male martyr may undergo posthumous deification, so too have satīs throughout Rajasthan. After performing their self-sacrifice, these women are often designated as a satī mā, a particular category of extraordinary being whose status is higher than that of a pitranī and lower than that of a devī (feminine form of devtā, a goddess). Satī mās are frequently worshipped at the site where they performed their sacrifice and their husband’s memorial was later erected.16 Until the nineteenth century, satī communicated the honor and authority the male, in whose honor the act was performed, commanded during his life. The more women who performed this ultimate self-sacrifice, the greater the prestige of the deceased and his dynasty, all of which was recorded in image and text on devalīs in many Rajput memorial traditions. Throughout the Raj­ put courts prior to the mid-nineteenth century, it would have been humiliating and unthinkable to have no satīs accompany the deceased, particularly if he was a king. Accordingly, with the colonial ban on satī, the Bika Rathores were forced to refashion this visual aspect of their memorial tradition in order to save face. In becoming a satī, a Rajput woman fulfilled a critical aspect of her dharm. In addition to generating prestige for the deceased male, a satī’s act was believed to ensure the salvation of her and her husband’s souls and their eternal union in paradise. In contrast to the more individualized depiction of Bika Rathore males on devalīs, satīs are always highly generalized; there is only slight, if any, variation between one and another. Proximity to the male, location on a plinth, and a crown indicates a royal wife, while their location on the devalīs’ lower registers signifies concubines, servants, dancers, or lower-ranking, nonRajput wives. In addition to featuring in iconic form in relief, the social status and natal home of each satī is carefully noted in the accompanying epigraph, although their individual names are typically, and respectfully, omitted. 16

Sources on satī deification and worship are plentiful. Among others, see Lindsey Harlan, “Stages of Sati Transformation” in Religion and Rajput Women.

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figure 5.5 Rao Kalyanmalmal’s devalī, Devi Kund Sagar

Naming the satīs’ natal homes underscored the political alliances forged through the couple’s union and the dutiful self-sacrifice their daughters performed, which generated additional prestige for their natal homes. Each relief image of a woman on a male’s devalī therefore functioned as much as an icon signifying a real woman who immolated herself on his pyre as a metonym signifying the distinction her self-sacrifice conferred on the male, his house, and the Rajput community, as well as the bravery and sat (goodness) believed to be inherent in such women for them to perform this act. Satī literally means “possessor of goodness or virtue.” Along with building Bikaner’s new fort, Junagarh, Rājā Rai Singh inaugurated Devi Kund Sagar with the construction of a chatrī in honor of his father, Rao Kalyanmal (Figs 5.5, 5.6) While the chatrī was reconstructed under Ganga

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figure 5.6 Rao Kalyamal’s chatrī

Singh, Kalyanmal’s red-sandstone devalī is one of the few that appears (based on stylistic analysis and weathering) to be original. Akbar’s mir bakhshi (chief of military) Nizam-ud-Din Ahmad records in the Tabakāt-i-Akbarī that Kalyanmal was in fact “so fat that he could not ride on horseback,”17 but the Rao is depicted on his devalī as a slim equestrian. The inscription records that four of his queens, one concubine, and ten minor wives all became satīs. The iconography of the female figures on the devalī reflects their statuses: the queens stand stoically on a plinth next to the rao’s horse, with their hands in añjali mudrā; the concubine is shown in a dancing posture and holding a fly whisk; 17

Tabakāt-i-Akbarī, trans. H.M. Elliot, ed. John Dowson (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2006), 166.

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and the ten lower-ranking wives are depicted on the lower registers, ornamented and playing instruments and dancing. Unusual is the inclusion of the names of Kalyanmal’s satīs, each of which is inscribed under her relief image. The inscription also records that the satīs and their king now reside in Vaikuntha (Vishnu’s heaven).18 Hindu royal families are typically followers of Vishnu or Shiva. While the ruler is alive he is regarded as the deity’s dīvān (just as Madho Singh II Kachhwaha made his trip to England as Gopalji’s dīvān). After death, the king is said to reside in the paradise of his particular dynastic deity and is referred to as either Vaikunthvasi (resident of Vishnu’s heaven) or Kailashvasi (resident of Shiva’s heaven). The Bika Rathores are Vaishnavas specifically devoted to Vishnu in his form as Lakshminath or Lakshminarayan. Royal processions in Bikaner, such as the one commemorating Ganga Singh’s golden jubilee in 1937, always conclude at the state Lakshminath temple located near Bikaner’s first fort. While the trope of the deceased Bika Rathore king as royal resident of Vishnu’s heaven and Lakshminath’s eternal dīvān is noted in inscriptions on devalīs from before the mid-nineteenth century, it receives increased visual emphasis after that time. The forms of the Bika Rathore chatrīs are the most consistent over time within the entire Rajput tradition. In other Rajput states, the architectural forms and decorative programs may shift, often dramatically, every few generations. But in the Bika Rathore tradition, changes in architectural forms are dictated by the gender and status of the commemorated individual. Kings, queens, princes, and princesses are each commemorated through a specific type of memorial with its own architectural forms, iconography, and decorative program—a system that remains in place at Devi Kund Sagar today. This formal and iconographic specificity is likely not original but attributable to the fact that the overwhelming majority of the state’s chatrīs were reconstructed during Ganga Singh’s reign, yet it enables the memorial forms and decorative programs to function clearly as indexical signs pointing to the status of the commemorated. Kings were commemorated through devalīs with the icon of a mounted warrior signifying the king himself. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, if a king was unmarried at the time of his death, he was depicted in attendance to Lakshminath, who is enthroned with his wife, the goddess Lakshmi. Queens who predeceased their husbands were memorialized through a chatrī with a pāliyā bearing a relief of a pair of footprints (similar to those erected in the royal Naruka chatrīs). Princes who died before adulthood received only a marble chabūtrā, while unmarried princesses received a chabūtrā with a pāliyā. 18

Churuwalla, Bīkāner ke śilā lekh, 6–7.

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A rājvī (younger brother of a king or other high-ranking aristocrat related to the ruling family) was cremated and commemorated through a chatrī constructed exclusively of red sandstone, not in Devi Kund Sagar, but in a chatrī bagh adjoining it, reflecting the privileged status he enjoyed during life. The construction of the Devi Kund Sagar memorials is well documented in royal archives. One file contains letters between the Usta family and the darbār concerning the appropriate memorial for a stillborn prince. Another contains details of the plans and costs of a queen regent’s chatrī. The court’s responses refer to other examples of stillborn royal children and late queens, and the types of memorials they received, indicating a desire to maintain consistency within the necropolis.19 Hari Singh, ṭhākur of Mahajan, oversaw the restorations of the Bikaner chatrīs under Ganga Singh in the 1920s. In numerous letters to the mahārājā and the Ustas, he makes reference to Ganga Singh’s desire that the chatrīs’ and their devalīs’ original forms and decoration be preserved, and that only necessary preservation be undertaken. The original building materials were also maintained. Chatrīs built prior to the mid-nineteenth century are of red sandstone; those built after are exclusively of white marble. The one exception in Ganga Singh’s faithful restoration program was the domes.20 These are now of a uniform late-Mughal style (deeply segmented, with petals encircling the drum). Each chatrī is surmounted by a single dome or a cluster of five, with a bangaldar vaulted roof on each side. As with Rao Bika’s chatrīs commemorating the state’s early rulers (sixteenth to mid-eighteenth centuries), the chatrīs are trabeate, with temple-style pillars (square planned on the bottom half, octagonal in the upper half) and brackets supporting a chajjā. Chatrīs commemorating rulers who reigned from the mid-eighteenth century onward offer late Mughal-style baluster columns, foliated arches, and a jālī surrounding the devalī. This last feature mirrors the jālīs enclosing sarcophagi in Islamic tombs, which was doubtless their origin. Styles of pillars and arches appear to make their debut in Bikaner chatrīs only several years after they became standard features in the imperial architectural vocabulary, a trend mirrored in contemporaneous work at Junagarh Fort.21 19

20 21

PWD, Current, 7 (1947), “Construction of a Thaṛa at Devi Kund for a Stillborn of Maharaj Kumar Sahib—Papers.” PWD, Files 1617–39. PWD, Current, 3 (1946), “Construction of Makrana Marble Cenotaph for Late Her Highness Sir Maharaniji Sahib at Devi Kund,” 1. PWD (1926) “Devikund—Cenotaph of Late Rajvi Sahib and Thaṛa of Megh Singh’s Late Senior Widow at—Construction of—Estimate Regarding,” 1. Hari Singh, letter dated April 8, 1926. Interview with Dalip Singh, coordinator, Maharaja Ganga Singh Trust, Lallgarh Palace, Bikaner (October 23, 2006). Tillotson, The Rajput Palaces, 143.

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For three centuries—from at least the construction of Rao Kalyanmal’s chatrī to that of Rāj Kūmār Mota Singh in 1825—the Bika Rathore chatrīs remained remarkably consistent in their forms and their devalīs’ iconography. However, with the construction of the chatrī of Surat Singh (r. 1788–1828) we encounter a striking disruption: the construction material shifts from red sandstone and white marble to exclusively white marble, and a revised iconographic program appears on the devalī. These changes are retained in all subsequent memorials.

The Iconography of Eternal Union

In 1825, Deep Kunwar, daughter of the Sisodia mahārāṇā of Mewar, joined her husband, Mota Singh, Surat Singh’s heir apparent, at his funeral pyre. In so doing, she became Bikaner’s last and most celebrated royal satī. The manner in which the couple is memorialized, and the princess worshipped as a satī mā, at the site of Mota Singh’s chatrī represents a subtle act of defiance directed by the Bikaner court at its new allies, the British. The greater use of marble, a material far costlier than sandstone, and the revised frieze programs on the devalīs in all subsequent royal chatrīs likewise serve as barometers of Bikaner’s shifting funerary practices and its changing political landscape in the period after Mota Singh and Deep Kunwar’s memorial was constructed. By the early years of the nineteenth century, the Marathas had forcibly instated themselves as the new feudal lords in several Rajput states. In their attempts to fill the power vacuum created by the weakened Mughal Empire and establish themselves as the paramount power in north India, the Marathas demanded large sums in tribute from their Rajput vassals. By1818 nearly all the Rajput courts forged alliances with the upcoming and increasingly martially focused British East India Company as a way to seek refuge from the Marathas. Although Bikaner never came under direct Maratha control, Mahārājā Surat Singh surely felt the growing threat. He also had other compelling reasons to seek an alliance with the British. His path to the throne had been less than smooth; he is believed to have played a key role in the deaths of both his elder brother, Mahārājā Raj Singh, and Raj Singh’s minor son, Mahārājā Pratap Singh, each of whom ruled for only a few days. The early years of Surat Singh’s reign were also marked by the threat of Pindari attacks, feuds with neighboring Rajput territories, and skirmishes with several high-ranking nobles that resulted in rebellions. Beginning in 1808, Surat Singh made consistent attempts to court British favor and forge an alliance in order to secure his rule. Finally, in 1818 the British consented, immediately quelled the rebellions, and secured the

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mahā­­rājā’s office.22 Surat Singh was thus indebted to the British and surely cautious about doing anything to jeopardize their support. British-drafted alliances with the individual Rajput states specified that both parties would act as allies in “perpetual friendship” and “unity of interests.” However, the Rajput courts were also to act in “subordinate cooperation” with, and accept the supremacy of, the British government.23 This British-authored wording of the relationship established the Rajputs’ inferior political status from the outset of the alliance, leaving the colonial power in a position to coerce them into prohibiting a major component of their funerary tradition. Although the Bikaner court did not bow to British pressure and officially ban the practice of satī until 1854, the British had made clear their abhorrence of the practice, throughout India, long before then. It was officially banned in Calcutta, for example, in 1829.24 Surat Singh was confronted with a dilemma: He was surely cognizant of the British aversion to satī, and they undoubtedly pressured him to end the practice at his court, if not completely ban it in his state. However, when Mota Singh died in 1925, Surat Singh would have been keenly aware that if Deep Kunwar, the only wife of the late heir apparent, did not become a satī, it would be shameful not only for the memory of his son but for the Bika Rathore royal line. Deep Kunwar was a Sisodia princess, and the Sisodias were of course upheld among the Rajput clans as paradigms of proud dharmik rulership. To have a Sisodia princess become a satī in honor of his son would bolster Surat Singh’s prestige and legitimize his family in the eyes of Bikaner’s nobles, a boost he sorely needed. Moreover, to prevent a Sisodia princess from fulfilling her dharm could well rankle the Mewar court. History records—and the mahārājā probably ensured that these “facts” became well known—that Surat Singh nevertheless forbade his daughter-in-law to become a satī.25 What then occurred was a series of convenient “miracles” that both precluded the mahārājā’s enforcement of the unofficial ban and offered him an excuse for why he could not enforce it. The palace initially attempted to prevent Deep Kunwar from joining her husband at his pyre by locking her inside a guarded room. However, during the night, the sentries fell asleep and the locked doors are said to have opened by 22 23

24 25

Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 718–21, 845–46. Singh, The Relations of the House of Bikaner, 129–30. For a detailed account of the rise of British power in Rajasthan and the particulars of their alliance with each state, see Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 770–939. For more on British reactions and pressure to abolish satī, see Major, Sati: A Historical Anthology, particularly chapters 4–7 and 9–10. Deep Kunwar’s hagiography was recounted to me by the priest and devotees at her temple (September 16, 2006).

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themselves. As the story goes, the princess’s father-in-law was then moved to reconsider his prohibition. Surat Singh assigned Deep Kunwar a final trial: if she could perform her requisite pre-satī ablutions with boiling water, he would permit her to join his son at his funeral pyre. When she touched the water, it immediately cooled and she proceeded to bathe. Deep Kunwar was then granted permission to become a satī. These events were accepted and continue to be interpreted as displays of divinely evinced thaumaturgy. In accordance with precolonial Rajput funerary custom, Deep Kunwar led her husband’s funerary cortege out of the fort and pressed her hands, which were stained in sindūr (vermilion powder) and turmeric, to its outer gates as a gesture of her satī vrat (vow to become a satī) (Fig. 5.7). Deep Kunwar’s handprints joined those of generations Bika Rathore women who had made their satī vrats before her. As on fort gates across Rajasthan, at Junagarh the rows of satī prints have been faced with plaster as a mark of honor and to preserve their traces as indexical signs of each woman’s self-sacrifice and the prestige it generates for both her natal and marital homes. Deep Kunwar is the Jodha Rathores’ most celebrated satī, and her handprints alone are faced with white marble. Under each pair of satī handprints, an epigraph records, as on a devalī, her husband’s name, the dates of his life, and the satī’s natal home. Beyond their status as indexical signs, the marital iconography of the handprints also establishes them as a synecdoche of a sughēn. Rows of bangles feature prominently on each wrist, affirming their owner’s status as a wife, not widow, as bangles are the most conspicuous of a Hindu bride’s sōlah śringār. Hindu widows are typically enjoined to lead austere lives and prohibited from wearing adornments, and bangles are so well established as a synecdoche of Hindu matrimony that their absence suggests widowhood. Smashing one’s bangles is a well-known performance of grief upon hearing of a husband’s death; thus to smash one’s bangles is a metaphor for becoming a widow. Arms adorned with bangles were (and remain) signs of marriage, establishing them as topoi of the satī’s status as a married woman in different traditions of Hindu funerary art. Devalīs throughout India offer an icon of a mounted warrior, and a relief of a hand and bangled forearm (and not the rest of the woman’s body) to signify the satī. As Mary Storm explains: The decorated arm indicates that the woman who died was not a widow, no longer entitled to wear her ornaments, but a wife joining her husband in death. She was a sahagamanī, ‘one who accompanies’. The satī went to the pyre dressed in in her finery and wearing her ornaments, her selfsacrifice by fire exempting her from becoming an inauspicious and

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figure 5.7 Satī hand prints on the exterior gate of Junagarh Fort, Bikaner. Those of Deep Kunwar are in the center.

unadorned widow. The arm decorated with bangles is the most common symbol of a satī.26 Local women continue to honor the satīs and anoint the handprints on Junagarh’s gates with sindūr, turmeric, and pieces of sweets offered as prasād. 26

Head and Heart: Valour and Self-sacrifice in the Art of India (New Delhi: Routledge, 2013), 137.

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Turmeric and sindūr are highly significant in Hindu marriage rituals: On the night before their wedding, the couples’ bodies are anointed with turmeric, which is considered pure and auspicious. During the marriage ceremony, the groom applies sindūr to the part in his bride’s hair. Hindu women frequently wear sindūr as a sign of their married status and indicator that their husbands are still alive. Bright red and mustard are thus auspicious matrimonial colors. Satīs are upheld as dutiful wives whose act facilitated their eternal union with their husband in heaven. In fact, many Rajasthanis with whom I spoke likened the satī’s act to the couple’s second marriage. Satīs wore full bridal attire; its colors and adornments signified not only marriage but also their self-sacrifice and posthumous transformation into satī mās. Mota Singh and Deep Kunwar’s pyre is said to have been set alight, not by human hand, but by the rays of the rising sun, before Deep Kunwar’s body burned along with that of her husband. Satī lore is replete with accounts of pyres being lit by extraordinary forces, an occurrence attributed to the inherent sat, or goodness, of the satī-to-be, which increases as her immolation and transformation become imminent.27 Immediately after Deep Kunwar became a satī, news of the miracles that made it possible spread. Legend and history combined to transform her into one of those exceptional satīs held to be truly divine, and today she is considered a goddess by her devotees. Mota Singh’s chatrī, the site of Deep Kunwar’s self-sacrifice, quickly became the locus of her local cult, serving both as his chatrī and her temple. According to the priest of Deep Kunwar’s temple, the chatrī (Fig. 5.8) and devalī (Fig. 5.9) were erected by Surat Singh in accordance with the Hindu practice that a father is responsible for his son’s cremation. In the royal Rajput tradition, the father is also responsible for his son’s memorialization should the son predecease him. The architectural form of Mota Singh’s chatrī does not differ from the others at Devi Kund Sagar, apart from the fact that the structure in enclosed. Additional factors that separate Mota Singh’s memorial from others in the necropolis include devotees’ ephemeral offerings and stains from the sandalwood and vermilion paste the priest uses to anoint the devalī during the goddess’s twice-daily program of worship. The most striking indication that this chatrī concomitantly serves as a site of worship is the inclusion of an image of Ganesh at the apex of the stele. As noted in the analysis of the Jodha Rathore devals at Mandore, Rajput memorials possessing an exclusively secular commemorative function do not bear iconic images of Ganesh, this being the exclusive prerogative of 27

Harlan, Religion and Rajput Women, 129–30.

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figure 5.8 Rāj Kumar Mota Singh’s chatrī, Satī Mā Deep Kunwar’s temple, Devi Kund Sagar, commissioned by Mahārājā Surat Singh, 1820’s

figure 5.9 Mota Singh’s devalī. Ganesh is at the apex

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memorials that concomitantly function as sacred sites of Hindu worship. As Mota Singh’s is the only chatrī at Devi Kund Sagar that is also a temple, Mota Singh’s is the only devalī in the necropolis bearing an image of Ganesh. It is a clear indicator that the chatrī is sacred space, irrefutably marking its function as beyond that of a secular memorial. The image fulfills the same function as a mūrti (sacred image) of Ganesh in a Hindu temple. The devalī’s inscription underscores the chatrī’s function as a temple to Deep Kunwar by enjoining devotees who come to worship the satī mā first to worship Ganesh,28 thereby mirroring ritual practice performed in Hindu temples. Both the numerous satī icons on the devalīs of Mota Singh’s male ancestors and the many handprints on Junagarh’s gates testify to the generations of Bika Rathore daughters-in-law who dutifully participated in cultivating the honor and prestige of their marital home. However, no other satī from this dynasty is worshipped as a goddess. Deep Kunwar alone is remembered today as having performed miracles. Surat Singh must have been at least partly responsible for the spread of the news of the miraculous events that led to Deep Kunwar becoming a satī and the promotion of her worship. These miracles all occurred in Junagarh’s zenānā and would not have leaked beyond its walls had the mahārājā sworn his family and the palace staff to secrecy. On the contrary, he must have ensured that the news spread among his subjects. And Surat Singh himself commissioned the devalī on which the semantic content of the inscription and image combine to promote his daughter-in-law as a divine figure worthy of worship. These actions were both timely and diplomatic. They achieved the twin goals of bolstering Surat Singh’s sagging reputation in his home state and removing his culpability in the eyes of the British, whose favor ensured his good fortune. According to Deep Kunwar’s hagiography, the king attempted to prevent his daughter-in-law from becoming a satī; it was divine intervention that facilitated her transformation. And yet the inscription on Deep Kunwar’s devalī is unusually specific, including her name rather than just her natal home, as is more typical, and inviting the visitor to worship. Surat Singh clearly desired that the particulars of his daughter-in-law’s self-sacrifice and its consequent prestige be carefully preserved for posterity in public space. These factors ensure that Deep Kunwar is a unique satī within the wider Rajput milieu; she is held by her devotees to be not only a satī mā but a highly individualized devī. Today, as mentioned, Mota Singh’s stele bears ephemeral traces of the ritual activity the priest performs to Deep Kunwar. Each dawn and dusk he outlines 28

Churuwalla, Bīkāner ke śilā lekh, 101–2.

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each figure on the stele with turmeric and sindūr. Deep Kunwar’s hands and feet are also anointed with henna paste, another reference to Hindu marriage ritual (brides’ feet and hands are traditionally covered with auspicious symbols in henna before their marriages). Thus the turmeric, sindūr, and henna all promote Deep Kunwar as a wife who has rejoined her husband in eternal union. Twice a day the priest also adds decorative motifs such as whorls and sawtooth designs in sindūr and turmeric, as well as auspicious symbols such as the swastika, to the bottom of the devalī. The frieze on Mota Singh’s stele is set in stone, so to speak. It is inalterable. However, the devalī’s appearance changes dramatically twice a day with the priest’s applications of these ritual substances. Local devotees often make pilgrimages to seek the satī mā’s blessings and ask for boons. The coconuts, wedding invitations, and bangles they tie to the outsides of the jālīs of the chatrī are visual evidence of Deep Kunwar’s divine efficacy. Her devotees offer these items as fulfillment of a manat (contractual agreement between devotee and the divine). Mota Singh’s devalī therefore has an evolving life. It has not, like most, laid still from the moment of its creation but is an interactive, multimedia, and sacred installation.29 Mota Singh’s chatrī and its devalī were constructed during a time of great change throughout the Rajput states. Again, due largely to rising pressure from the British, Deep Kunwar became Bikaner’s last royal satī. After this moment, the construction material and iconographic program on royal Bika Rathore devalīs underwent a fundamental shift. The only possible reason is that the previous style was intimately associated with satī and other facets of what had become a bygone era. The Bika Rathores’ funerary practices, their public identity, and their political situation had changed fundamentally. New iconography was needed for a new era.

Lakshminath’s Divine Darbār

Beginning with Surat Singh’s chatrī (Fig. 5.10), which was commissioned by his son and heir, Mahārājā Ratan Singh (r. 1828–51), all of Bikaner’s rulers have been commemorated through chatrīs constructed exclusively of white Makrana marble. On the devalīs, the icon of the mounted, sword-brandishing warrior is exchanged for a more individualized relief portrait of the deceased, which 29

Certain steles in chatrīs in Mahasatiya, the royal necropolis in Udaipur, are also adorned with ephemeral materials such as silver foil, paint, turmeric, sindūr, and henna to honor divine heroes and their satīs. However, for reasons outlined in the introduction, these memorialized males were not kings or heirs to the throne, but aristocrats.

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Chatrī of Mahārājā Surat Singh, commissioned by Mahārājā Ratan Singh, early-nineteenth century, Devi Kund Sagar

flanks an enthroned Vishnu (as Lakshminath) and Lakshmi (Fig. 5.11). Garuda kneels at the foot of the throne upon which the divine couple sits. As is evident by his central, enthroned location in the composition, and the size hierarchy, now Vishnu, and no longer the memorialized king, is the focus of the devalī. The frieze depicts a divine darbār with Vishnu at its head. The memorialized king holds a fly whisk and temple-style votive lamp, as his kul devā’s eternal dīvān. The epigraphic and frieze programs on the post-1825 devalīs work in concert to depict the deceased as a Vaikunthvasi dīvān. Both Vishnu and Surat Singh are sheltered by honorific umbrellas, visually linking them. On later Bika Rathore devalīs, both the king and Vishnu are nimbate. Surat Singh’s queen did not become a satī yet is still depicted on his stele. She holds a fan, attending Lakshmi. Surat Singh and his successors’ steles still bear the sun and moon icons that featured on the earlier devalīs. However, as Mota Singh was the last royal Bika Rathore to have a satī, these icons no longer signify Hindu marriage. Rather, they now announce that as long as there is sun and moon, the memorialized king will reside in Vishnu’s heaven. By the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Rajputs had refashioned their public identity, effectively exchanging their martial persona for that of royal colonial subject. As discussed in relation to the Narukas of Alwar, swords

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Surat Singh’s devalī

became, in light of this updated public identity, purely ceremonial, especially with the introduction of firearms. Although they continue to function in Rajput lieux de mémoire (heritage hotels and touristic displays in their old forts) as a metonym for the community’s proud, martial past, Rajput swords had by the time Ratan Singh commissioned Surat Singh’s devalī long ceased to be accurate signifiers of Rajput identity. The Bika Rathore devalīs constructed after satī was abandoned may themselves be understood as polysemic signs. To a Rajput audience, the new manner of portraying the Bika Rathore mahārājā on the devalīs was overtly courtly. The substitution of lavish white marble for less costly red sandstone similarly underscored this new luxurious courtly identity. The building material may also have been intended to resuscitate Ratan Singh’s compromised pride. After all, his father was the first Bika Rathore king to go to his pyre alone, a situation that in an earlier era would have been disgraceful. With the conspicuous absence of any reference to satī, the new iconographic program on the Bika Rathores’ devalīs emphasizes, instead, the role of the deceased as Lakshminath’s dīvān. To the Bika Rathores, this would have conveyed a less martial, more devotional posthumous identity. To their new overlords, it signified their royal feudatories’ dutiful compliance. Beginning with Surat Singh’s mahārāṇī, Bika Rathore principal queens were memorialized through their own chatrīs. Located centrally beneath the domes

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of the queens’ chatrīs is a pāliyā with a pair of footprints in relief. If the handprints on the outer gates of Rajput forts are indexes of satī, footprints on the pāliyās are indexes of its absence. In Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain visual cultures, footprints function as indexical traces signifying a deity’s or great teacher’s last contact with the earth. The Bika Rathores appropriated the icon of footprints from sacred art, and in the absence of satī the sacred association promotes the memorialized queen as extraordinary. Queens’ chatrīs are commissioned by their sons, who would certainly be vested in associating their mothers with the divine, as it would bolster their own status. As examined in relation to the chatrī of the Kachhwaha mahārājās Sawai Jai Singh II and Madho Singh I, and those of the Jodha Rathores’ from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, crisis is the most significant catalyst for change in Rajput funerary art. The Kachhwaha king Ishwari Singh responded to threats to his rule by increasing the scale and changing the building material to costlier marble for his father’s chatrī. Rājā Udai Singh of Marwar appropriated a politically charged lieu de mémoire in the renaissant-style deval he com­ missioned for his father, Rao Maldev. When faced with a similar threat to his communal, dynastic, and personal pride, Mahārājā Ratan Singh of Bikaner responded in a form that had by the late nineteenth century become well established throughout the Rajput courts: he made a fundamental alteration to his dynasty’s funerary art. While each of the Rajput memorial traditions examined thus far responded to crises in unique ways, the results were the same: potentially devastating embarrassments were sublimated in bombastic forms, lavish materials, or exalted depictions of the memorialized. In the case of Bikaner, as Rajput gender roles were redefined in the early colonial period, its stele iconography shifted to accommodate them. In British-administered Bikaner, late mahārājās were no longer pictured as eternal warriors but eternal servants in the heavenly court of their kul devā. No longer compelled by their dharm to become satīs, Bika Rathore queens joined their husbands in eternal service to Vishnu and Lakshmi in Vaikuntha.

Monuments, Memorials, and the Politics of Restoration under Mahārājā Ganga Singh

Chatrī restoration is uncommon, and no other state has undertaken such an extensive renovation program of its memorials as Bikaner. An image taken at the royal chatrī bagh in the former state of Pugal shows a crumbling cenotaph strangled by thorny vines and swallowed by the ever-shifting desert sands

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Chatrī, Pugal necropolis

(Fig. 5.12). Sadly, this is an all too common sight in chatrī baghs across Rajasthan. Ganga Singh’s unusual chatrī-restoration program may be viewed as polyvalent; that is, intended, like Mota Singh’s devalī nearly a century earlier, both to champion his ancestors and placate the British—in this case through the “modern” activity of architectural restoration and the incorporation of domes that were popular among Indo-Saracenic enthusiasts. When he was seven years old, Ganga Singh succeeded his older brother, Dungar Singh, who died heirless. Ganga Singh attended Mayo College, the Raj institution for the “gentlemanly” education of Indian nobles, which is built in the Indo-Saracenic style. He had a private English tutor, and the British were well represented in his court of regency. After being formally installed in 1887, Ganga Singh continued to cultivate relations with the Raj. He traveled frequently to Europe and was active in the colonial government, representing the empire in the Imperial War Cabinet during World War I. He personally served in the British army during both world wars, and sent troops, camels, arms, and funds in support, for which he received numerous imperial medals and distinguished titles. Ganga Singh also worked closely with the Raj administration to develop schools, hospitals, railways, British-style administrative systems, and

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canals in his remote desert state. Under Ganga Singh’s rule, Bikaner became one of the most prosperous states in British India.30 Ganga Singh was also the first chancellor of the Chamber of Princes, which George V created to grant Indian kings self-rule of their states and transform India into an autonomous dominion within the British Empire. The goals of the Chamber of Princes and its vision for their states’ and India’s futures were perfectly in step with those of the Raj, which sought to relax control and administration of India but still desired revenue and support such as Ganga Singh had provided in the wars. Thus, Ganga Singh concomitantly remained loyal to the crown and worked to further the imperial program while securing sovereign power for himself. Like his fellow chamber members, Ganga Singh’s aims and methods differed greatly from those of Gandhi or the more militant ­Freedom Fighters who were active throughout Rajasthan during the early twentieth century, and whom he considered seditious.31 Ganga Singh went to great lengths to ensure his state’s support of the Raj, including imprisoning rebels and censoring the press.32 This dual dedication to empire and Indian self-rule—which would bestow greater power upon him than his ancestors had enjoyed since Bikaner first allied with the British in 1818—is key to understanding Ganga Singh’s architectural commissions and the messages he sought to convey to various audiences through them. Given his support of empire, it is not surprising that Ganga Singh was also one of the most enthusiastic princely patrons of the Indo-Saracenic architectural style, which communicated (as it did for his contemporaries Sir Pratap Singh of Marwar and Mahārājā Sawai Madho Singh II of Jaipur) his allegiance to the colonial government. The Indo-Saracenic style was brought to Bikaner with the construction of Lallgarh Palace, the new royal residence (Fig. 5.13). Begun in 1895, it was designed by Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob, one of the founders of the Indo-Saracenic style, who also designed two Kachhwaha chatrīs and the Albert Hall Museum in Jaipur. In addition to the new palace, Jacob designed numerous other buildings throughout the state. Lallgarh perfectly embodies Ganga Singh’s polysemic public identity, joining what Metcalf refers to as a “traditional” facade (in that it displays recognizably pre-colonial north Indian elements) with a “modern” interior. Much of the palace’s organization and interior ornamentation, especially in the guest wing, which was intended largely for British use, reassured Ganga Singh’s British visitors of his commitment to empire. In contrast to the more typical Rajput forts, whose rooms have 30 31 32

Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 1074–81. Singh, The Relations of the House of Bikaner, 201–81. Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 1078–79.

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Lalgarh Palace, Bikaner

flexible functions and are sparsely furnished with moveable furniture, this section of the palace has rooms with designated functions, European furniture, and modern conveniences, such as an indoor swimming pool and a banquet hall. Such layouts and features were becoming popular among Indian rulers who traveled to Europe and spent time with the British. On the other hand, Lallgarh’s facade, the only part visible to the majority of Ganga Singh’s subjects, proclaims its patron’s martial Rajput identity.33 Features such as the merlons, bastions, and battlements are typical of older Rajput forts but are largely absent from contemporaneous palaces, such as Umaid Bhawan, Jodhpur’s royal residence ­begun in 1929. More important, Lallgarh’s defensible features are purely decorative. In this sense, like the reliefs of traditional weapons on pāliyās in the later Naruka chatrīs, they nostalgically reference a bygone martial Rajput past. The Ganga Singh Papers, the official documentation of his rule, now housed at Lallgarh, testify that the mahārājā took an active role in all the major building work in his state, including chatrīs. He worked closely with Jacob, and his approval was required at several stages of the projects. The Ganga Singh Papers also note that he owned a copy of the Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details, 33

Metcalf, An Imperial Vision, 122–29.

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Jacob’s twelve-volume architectural reference work, first published in 1890. The Jeypore Portfolio was a vast compilation of architectural drawings of IndoIslamic and Rajput buildings, produced by Indian draughtsman in Jacob’s employ. Jacob intended its contents to provide models of historic buildings so architects and artisans could either copy features from them directly or find inspiration in them. One of the most ambitious exercises in Indo-Saracenic tradition, the Jeypore Portfolio was commercially and practically unsuccessful: few copies were sold, and it was soon regarded more as a reference and record than a practical guide.34 After Jacob himself, who consulted the work for all his commissions, Ganga Singh may have been its most ardent enthusiast. In his commitment to the Indo-Saracenic style and all it communicated, he too consulted it regularly. Ganga Singh’s chatrī restorations should be understood, like Lallgarh, as an expression of his modernity, association with, and support of the British Raj, but also as an expression of his urbane familiarity with contemporaneous imperial styles and an effort to lionize his dynasty through established symbols of Rajput legitimacy. As noted in relation to Jaswant Thara, in the wake of the Archaeological Survey of India’s nineteenth-century “rediscovery” of the subcontinent’s material past, the British colonial government undertook restorations of several buildings that had fallen into disrepair. The concept of the monument was thus introduced to India, and numerous buildings were reinterpreted as tangible vestiges of the past in need of loving care and preservation. As Kavuri-Bauer notes, with their renovations of monuments such as the Taj Mahal, the British presented themselves as paternalistic custodians of India’s history, which they displayed on their own terms, in support of the imperial program.35 Ganga Singh’s restoration program similarly reinterprets his ancestors’ chatrīs as monuments rather than simply memorials left, like the majority of Rajput chatrīs and the Taj Mahal prior to Curzon’s renovations, to the ravages of time. A chain of correspondence between Ganga Singh and Ṭhākur Hari Singh documents the changes to the existing cenotaphs. In one letter the ṭhākur stresses the need to construct an entirely new memorial for Rao Bika, as the present one—a humble structure of red sandstone, dating to the seventeenth century—is “not a befitting one to such a distinguished and illustrious person 34

35

Vikramaditya Prakash, “Between Copying and Creation: The Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details,” in Colonial Modernities: Building, Dwelling, and Architecture in British India and Ceylon, ed. Peter Scriver and Vikramaditya Prakash (London: Routledge, 2007), 115– 27. Monumental Matters, 49–76.

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as His Highness”36 The chatrī and its devalī were subsequently rebuilt in flawless white marble. Ganga Singh’s chatrī restorations should also be understood as a counterpoint to the memorials to members of the Raj in the sprawling public park he commissioned directly in front of Junagarh Fort. As Metcalf notes, the very concept of a public park—a common space of leisure for citizens of various faiths and castes—did not exist in precolonial India. However, the park was more than an ecumenical green, well-watered space for congregation and relaxation. It disseminated messages of the power, control, and the unshakable presence of the Raj through the numerous monuments erected in its honor: the Queen Empress Victory Gate, the Sir C. Bayley fountain, and the Lord Minto terrace. The only Indian represented in the park at the time of its construction was Dungar Singh, Ganga Singh’s late brother. The white marble statue of the former mahārājā depicts him enthroned in an Indo-Saracenic-style kiosk with a soaring śikhara (Fig. 5.14). Again, as discussed in relation to Jaswant Thara, numerous Indian rulers commissioned public portrait sculptures of Queen Victoria to proclaim their support of her empire. Still others commissioned portrait sculptures of their predecessors in a similar style to announce that they modeled their own rule after that of the Queen Empress. Dungar Singh’s statue is located on the edge of the park, adjacent to Junagarh: sites of memory contiguous in space yet separated by nearly four centuries. Each conveys the Bika Rathores’ alliance with the imperial power that reigned at the time of its construction. Both Junagarh’s builder, Rājā Rai Singh, and Ganga Singh appropriated current imperial styles to announce their dynasty’s privileged position in the current imperial government. The park’s centerpiece is its sixty-foot-tall Kirti Stambha (Victory Column) of red sandstone and white marble. Designed by Jacob, its blind foliated arches and bangaldar roofs are in the Indo-Saracenic style. Erecting victory pillars is an ancient Indic tradition, the best known example being Rāṇā Kumbha’s vijay stambha at Chittorgarh.37 However, the slabs along the sides of the tower are inscribed (in Hindi and English, to reach a wide audience) with the names of soldiers from Bikaner who fought in the world wars, making the tower a proclamation of Ganga Singh’s support of the empire. 36

37

Letter to Ganga Singh, from Rājā Ṭhākur Hari Singh of Mahajan, Bikaner state, dated April 4, 1926, Ganga Singh Papers at Lallgarh Palace, Bikaner. Hermann Goetz also notes that all the steles in the Bikaner chatrīs date to the early-twentieth century and have replaced the originals (The Art and Architecture of Bikaner, 54). Metcalf, An Imperial Vision, 127–28.

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Dungar Singh’s memorial, Bikaner

As Ṭhākur Hari Singh’s letters indicate, Ganga Singh sought in his restorations to remain faithful to the chatrīs’ original appearance. The domes are the sole exception. As all the Bikaner chatrīs, apart from Mota Singh’s, are open, their bulbous domes are their most conspicuous feature. That late-Mughal style domes should feature on the memorials of kings who ruled long before such a style was devised, and incongruously surmount even trabeate constructions, testifies to the potent influence of the Indo-Saracenic style and Ganga Singh’s

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desire to co-opt its aesthetic and political messages. Archival sources do not reveal whether Ganga Singh’s favored colonial architect, Samuel Swinton Jacob, was involved in the chatrī restorations. However, the chatrī domes are nearly identical to those Jacob designed for public buildings in Jaipur, such as the Albert Hall Museum and the chatrīs he designed for the Kachhwaha kings Jai Singh and Ram Singh at Gaitor, indicating Ganga Singh’s desire to at least emulate Jacob’s style, if they are not actually his work. Such late Mughal-style domes also feature prominently in Swinton’s Jeypore Portfolio of Architectural Details, firmly establishing them in the Indo-Saracenic repertoire. As previously argued in relation to Jaswant Thara, while ultimately traceable to Mughal sources, many distinguishing features of the Indo-Saracenic style, such as these domes, were for their colonial audience associated more with the Raj than with the Mughals. In addition to announcing his allegiance to the Raj, the uniformity of the all the dynasty’s chatrī’s domes maps an unequivocal trajectory from Rao Bika, Bikaner’s first king, to Ganga Singh. This nicely elides the fact that Ganga Singh was not born to his current position of power but actively cultivated it through his Raj-supported proposal of Indian self-rule. Ganga Singh may also have intended the chatrī domes to convey a layer of sacred meaning. Similar domes surmount Ganga Singh’s restored temple to the Bika Rathores’ kul devī (dynastic goddess), Karṇī Mātā, at Deshnoke. While all royal Hindu houses have an iṣṭdevā or kul devā, Rajput houses also owe allegiance to a clan-specific goddess, a kul devī. The Bika Rathores are unusual among the Rajput dynasties in that they have two kul devīs: Nagnechi Ma, who is shared with all other Rathores, and the deified saint Karṇī Mātā. The latter predicted that Rao Bika, who came to her hermitage in Deshnoke while searching for territory in which to establish a kingdom, would establish a mightier state than his father’s and on land to the north of Deshnoke. Her prophecy was soon fulfilled, and Karni Mata remained Bika’s spiritual advisor. After her death, she joined Nagnechi Ma as one of his dynasty’s principal goddesses.38 The dome style shared by temple and chatrīs visually reinforces the link between the ruling house and its kul devī. In so doing, it underscores the Bika Rathores’ divinely supported political legitimacy. Rao Bika’s political aspirations were preordained by Karni Mata’s divine benediction. Ganga Singh exploited the shared morphology of the temple and chatrī domes to advertise his political legitimacy through lineage and association with Bika’s kul devī. Ganga Singh learned well from his imperial allies and used his restorations in the service of his political advancement. He proclaimed his support of the 38

For a brief discussion of Karni Mata’s hagiography and her role as the Bika Rathores’ kul devī, see Singh, The Relations of the House of Bikaner, 22, 25, 34–36.

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British Empire through his prolific Indo-Saracenic commissions and lauded its individual members through his public memorials. At the same time, with his chatrī restorations he created a complementary space to ennoble his own ancestors at Devi Kund Sagar. The restored chatrīs announce select aspects of the Bika Rathores’ history and identity, such as their dedication to Rajput dharm (as evidenced by the warrior kings and satīs on the devalīs). In the words of the ṭhākur of Mahajan, the Bika Rathores were “distinguished and illustrious” and are now appropriately memorialized as such. One daughter-in-law was so extraordinary and possessed such reserves of sat that she is worshipped as a goddess. As asserted in all the devalī inscriptions and depicted through the later friezes, the royal ancestors are in eternal service to the divine in heaven. Ganga Singh also learned from his ancestors Surat Singh and Ratan Singh. The devalī Surat Singh commissioned for his son, Mota Singh, and the mythology surrounding his daughter-in-law, Deep Kunwar, bolster Bika Rathore prestige while sidestepping questions of royal agency. Ratan Singh’s devalī for Surat Singh in turn presents him as both extraordinary and having complied with the British ban on satī. The Indo-Saracenic domes on Ganga Singh’s restored chatrīs suggest that under British rule the Bika Rathore mahārājās served in the colonial darbār, and in death serve in that of their kul devā.

Conclusion

While the renaissant devals of the Bika Rathores’ parent dynasty, the Jodha Rathores of Marwar, controvert their patrons’ political realities, the Bika Rathore chatrīs show their patrons skillfully negotiating dual identities as Rajput sovereigns and imperial subjects, and announcing those identities through the consistent and polyvalent forms of their memorials and in the text and icons on their devalīs. Surat Singh’s and Ganga Singh’s efforts were successful: Bikaner prospered under colonial rule, Deep Kunwar is worshipped as a satī mā, and Ganga Singh remains much beloved. Many Bikaneris associate him as much with the Raj as (perhaps erroneously) with Indian independence. In Mewar as in Bikaner, satī and the late king’s dedication to his kul devā were prominent topoi in royal arts before the British ban on satī in the midnineteenth century. However, unlike the Bika Rathores, the Sisodias of Mewar consistently opposed alliances with outside powers: first the sultanates, then the Mughals, and finally the British. Royal Mewari arts of various media announce their self-promoted history of resistance. Encoded in the forms and internal organization of the Sisodias’ chatrīs in Udaipur is the dynasty’s ­tra­dition of autonomy. Both Bika Rathore and Sisodia rulers crafted their

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predecessors’ posthumous identities as eternal dīvāns to their respective kul devās to communicate the same message: the divine benediction of their rule and, by extension, their own legitimacy. While the messages of the Bika Rathore and Sisodia royal chatrīs are essentially the same, they convey those messages through different formal and iconographic programs. The following, and final, chapter examines Sisodia public identity, the posthumous identities of their mahārāṇās, and how they are presented in their funerary arts.

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Chapter 6

Eklingji’s Divine Darbār: The Sisodia Chatrīs of Mewar Outside Udaipur, capital of the former kingdom of Mewar, dozens of chatrīs are tightly packed into the royal necropolis, Mahasatiya (Fig. 6.1). Their whitewashed domes dazzle in the strong sunlight; the forest of pillars creates a dizzying maze; and the chatrīs’ locations on soaring plinths give them an imposing presence. These lofty cenotaphs commemorate the Sisodia Rajput rulers of Mewar and fashion a distinctive posthumous identity for them. The Sisodia chatrīs consistently promote three specific and closely associated facets of their public identity: their king’s role as dīvān to the dynastic kul devā, Eklingji; their preeminence among Rajputs; and their invented tradition of maintaining political and cultural distance from outside powers.1 To these ends, the state temple to Eklingji serves as a religiously and politically charged lieu de mémoire. Its internal organization and the form of its maṇḍapa have been appropriated by the Sisodia chatrī patrons to announce their reciprocal relationship with this deity and their proud, autonomous past. This chapter first explores styles and themes in the Sisodias’ other arts, to situate their chatrīs within a wider, multimedia program that promotes the dynasty’s divine benediction and circulates select versions of their history. It then takes a closer look at Eklingji’s temple, considering its tumultuous history of desecration and subsequent reconstruction under illustrious Sisodia ancestors and the living king’s role as the god’s dīvān. Finally, the chapter considers how the installations within the chatrīs present the late king and his satīs in Eklingji’s heaven.

The Art of Propaganda: The Sisodias’ Invented Tradition of Resistance

Under both the Mughals and the British, the Sisodias cultivated a markedly different identity from that of their fellow Rajputs, one circulated through their bardic tales, panegyric texts, and visual arts. Key to Sisodia public identity 1 For a discussion of the Mewar mahārāṇā’s role as Eklingji’s dīvān, see Sharma, ed., Haquiqat, 16.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004300569_008

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figure 6.1 View of Mahāsatiyā, the Sisodia chatrī bagh outside Udaipur

is the dynasty’s staunch “death before dishonor” ethic, which it first demonstrated in 1303 when Sultan Alla-ud-din-Khilji attacked Chittorgarh, the Sisodias’ first fort. Sisodia mytho-history recounts that as the men performed śaka (martyrdom of riding out of a fort to defend it in the face of certain death), Queen Padmini led over one-thousand women in the fort to jauhar. Sisodia men performed śaka and the women jauhar on two other occasions in Mewar’s history: in 1535, when Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat besieged Chittorgarh, and again in 1567, when the Mughals, under Akbar, conquered the fort.2 Chittorgarh itself became a meaningful site of dynastic memory for later Sisodia rulers and architectural patrons who sought to harness its associations with their valorous, self-sacrificing past. Also key to the Sisodias’ dharmik reputation is their claim to ancestors such as the kings Hamir Singh (r. 1326–64), Rāṇā Kumbha (r. 1433–68), and Pratap Singh (r. 1572–97). These figures are remembered, not (like Rājā Man Singh of Amber or Rao Kalyanmal of Bikaner) for securing peace and financial security for their kingdoms by serving the Mughals, but for preserving Mewar’s independence, often at great cost in both funds and lives. Just as Man Singh’s 2 Hooja, A History of Rajasthan, 310–12. K.D. Erskine, The Rajputana Gazetteers: The Mewar Residency, first published 1908 (Gurgaon: Vipin Jain, reprint 1992), 15, 18–19.

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Kachhwaha ancestors accessed his memory in their chatrī commissions, so did Sisodia chatrī patrons appeal to the collective memory of these kings to fashion their own public identities and political legitimacy. Beyond enshrining the dynasty’s kul devā, the Eklingji temple proved a significant lieu de mémoire because of the many illustrious Sisodia ancestors, such as Rāṇā Kumbha, who had commissioned restorations to the structure, thereby indelibly associating themselves with it. Although most Rajput dynasties had allied with the Mughals under Akbar by the late sixteenth century, the Sisodias managed to resist for several more decades. Jahangir was finally able to accomplish what his father could not and in 1614 elicited the surrender of Mahārāṇā Amar Singh I (r. 1597–1620). Jahangir rewarded the Sisodias for their conciliation with special privileges not extended to other Rajputs: the rulers of Mewar were not required to attend the Mughal or, later, British) darbārs but sent the heir apparent in their stead, and the Sisodia kings were exempt from service in the Mughal army. Also significant in the construction of their exceptionally dharmik reputation is the fact that the Sisodias did not intermarry with the Mughals and for several generations refused their daughters to any Rajput house that did. As has been explored in previous chapters, the Sisodias’ renewed marital alliances with the Kachhwahas and Jodha Rathores in the mid-eighteenth century indirectly impacted those two houses’ memorial traditions. Such tenacious adherence to Rajput dharm has earned the Sisodias universal admiration among the Rajputs. To this day, they continue to garner the highest respect, and the mahārāṇā of Mewar is referred by the Sisodias’ self-styled designation, the Sun of the Hindus. This appellation is a play on words referring both to the Sisodias’ preeminent status among Rajputs and their Suryavanshi lineage. The title typically prefixes the names of individual Sisodia mahārāṇās in public inscriptions throughout Mewar. The Sisodias were not the only ones to promote their reputation. It was also greatly enhanced by the Mughals. After his defeat of Amar Singh, Jahangir wrote with a tone of great respect for the dynasty, “They have bowed in submission to no sultan of the land of India, and most of the time they have been in a state of insubordination and insurgence.”3 By presenting the Sisodias as proud, formidable warriors, Jahangir’s own victory of course acquired greater significance. Other Rajputs would also have been cognizant of the esteem the Mughals showed for the Sisodias at court. A similarly favorable bias toward the Sisodias continued in the colonial period. For his Annals and Antiquities of Rajast’han, completed in 1829, Colonel 3 Thackston, trans., Jahangirnama, 149, also 164–65.

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James Tod relied on Sisodia bardic accounts of the dynasty’s history. His widely read work helped perpetuate views of Sisodia superiority in colonial and postcolonial India.4 The Sisodias themselves were of course complicit in this highly favorable construction of their public selves, which they circulated through their artistic commissions, including their chatrīs. As examined in chapter 4, scholars have begun to point out that by the seventeenth century this construction of an elite identity and the dissemination of it through their arts was, in fact, carefully crafted political posturing on the part of the Sisodias. What the Mughal, Sisodia, colonial, and other Rajput visual, oral, and textual sources virtually ignore is that the Sisodias did not only ultimately accept Mughal suzerainty; they benefitted greatly from it. Their reputation, finances, and arts flourished under the alliance. Frequent skirmishes with the Mughals throughout the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries had drained the Sisodias’ funds and significantly reduced the size of their kingdom. When the devastating Mughal attacks ceased, the Sisodias were able to dedicate time and funds to courtly arts, in the service of rebuilding their reputation and inventing a tradition of proud cultural isolation. Sisodia princes spent time at the Mughal court and fought in their army (even though they were exempt from doing so). Mahārāṇā Karan Singh (r. 1620–28), for example, was friends with Shah Jahan, and the two corresponded regularly.5 The Sisodias were thus well versed in Mughal art, and this enabled them to create markedly different artworks that communicated their cultural distance from the Mughals. At the same time, Sisodia art also selectively appropriated from the imperial repertoire to announce the dynasty’s superiority not only over other Rajputs but over the Mughals as well. Scholars frequently identify Sisodia art, particularly paintings created after the Mughal alliance, as conservative, and note that they self-consciously draw from the artistic traditions of the pre-Mughal past. Thus, similar to the renaissant-style deval Rājā Udai Singh of Mawar commissioned for this father, Maldev (discussed in chapter 3) at the moment Sisodia pride was compromised and their powers checked, they turned to art particularly to renaissant forms 4 As examined in the Kachhwaha and Jodha Rathore sections of this study, numerous scholars have examined Tod’s role in establishing the Sisodias’ favorable reputation in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Among others, see: Taft, “Honor and Alliance”; Norbert Peabody, “The King Is Dead, Long Live the King: Karmic Kin(g)ship in Kotah,” in Gods, Kings, and Tigers: The Art of Kotah, ed. Stuart Cary Welch (New York: Asia Society Galleries, 1997), 76. Norbert Peabody, “Tod’s Rajast’han and the Boundaries of Imperial Rule in Nine­teenth Century India,” Modern Asian Studies 30, no. 1 (1996): 185–220. 5 Aitken, Intelligence of Tradition, 64.

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and styles in painting, as well as, and palace, temple, and memorial building to recoup their eminence. As Cynthia Talbot observes: Although it had been the dominant Rajput state of an earlier age, Mewar’s power and influence in Raj Singh’s seventeenth-century present was equaled, if not eclipsed, by the younger Rajput kingdoms of Amber and Jodhpur. There was little chance for Mewar to grow stronger through conquest of neighboring territories, as in old days, for the Mughals monitored and regulated the activities of their Rajput subordinates. The Mewar court had no recourse but to turn to the past in its quest for greater glory.6 Paintings from the seventeenth-century ateliers of Amber, Bikaner, and at times Marwar owe a clear debt to Mughal style and subject matter. Contact with Mughal painting and artists brought a cooler and more varied palette to these works, as well as realism through the creation of depth, recession, shading, and volume. Their subject matter expanded to include portraiture, as well as historical, darbār, and zenānā scenes. In contrast, seventeenth century Sisodia paintings largely eschew Mughal stylistic influence and subjects in favor of pre-Mughal local conventions. Seventeenthncentury Mewari painting is dominated by mythological and literary subjects, including rāgamālās, and characterized by blocks of hot color and a distinct lack of depth. It was only under the patronage of Mahārāṇā Amar Singh II (r. 1698–1710) that Mewari painters began to incorporate portraiture, Mughal iconography such as halos and court scenes, attempts at greater spatial representation, and more varied hues into their work. The Mughalized elements in the paintings patronized by Amar Singh II and his successors do not convey subjugation or mimicry. Rather, certain Mughal elements are appropriated and used in the service of aggrandizing the royal Mewari subject in a language that other Rajputs, and a Mughal audience, would understand. For example, Amar Singh II is the first Sisodia ruler to be depicted with a halo, a feature that came into the Rajput ateliers via Mughal portraiture (see Fig. 111, a painting probably of Mahārāṇā Bhim Singh with a halo). However, in eighteenth-century courtly India, the Sisodia halo was polyvalent. A contemporaneous viewer familiar only with Mughal painting would have read it as a manifestation of the king’s brilliance, which it signified in Mughal iconography. To one versed in Sisodia mytho-history, the halo would be a clear reference to the dynasty’s Suryavanshi 6 Talbot, “The Mewar Court’s Construction of History,” 24.

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lineage and the Sisodia ruler’s elite designations as the “Son of the Hindus” And “Son of the Sun.” As Jennifer Joffee persuasively argues, the Sisodias utilized archaic elements in their art, not only to reference their noble past, but to announce that they, and not the Mughals, were the rightful rulers of Mewar. Joffee reads key paintings and buildings commissioned by Mahārāṇā Jagat Singh (r. 1628–52) as rejoinders to Mughal commissions.7 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan commissioned opulent illustrated Mughal genealogies. Jagat Singh in turn commissioned illustrated mytho-historical Sisodia genealogies, which rival the imperial tomes in quality, luxury materials, size, and messages of political legitimacy. Jagat Singh’s Sūryavamśā traces the Sisodia line to the sun. He also commissioned a complete and exquisitely painted Ramayana. In manuscripts such as the Bāburnāma, Akbarnāma, and Padshahnāma, text and image map the Mughal line through illustrious ancestors, such as Babur and Timur, thereby legitimizing their patron’s rule. As the Sisodias are Suryavanshis, who trace their solar origins through Rama, Jagat Singh’s commissions of the Sūryavamśā and Ramayana would have fulfilled a similar legitimizing role but on Sisodian terms.8 A monumental genealogical scroll (562 × 541 cm) painted on cotton cloth between 1730 and 1740 sheds further light on the importance the Sisodias placed on their historic continuity, dharm, and claims to Mewar (Fig. 107). Attributed to the patronage of either Mahārāṇā Sangram Singh II (r. 1710–34) or Jagat Singh II (r. 1734–51), the scroll situates key events from Mewar’s mythohistory in a bucolic landscape of verdant hills punctuated by recognizable buildings and populated by deities, sādhus, and grazing cows. The landscape is identifiably Mewar’s Aravali hills, and the land and its inhabitants clearly thrive under Sisodia rule. Space cells offer stylized and labeled portraits of the dynasty’s rulers; scenes from historic battles such as the Mughal siege of Chittorgarh; a satī; and the dynasty’s progenitor, Bappa Rawal (r. 734–53), honoring his sage, Harit Rishi (Figs 6.2, 6.3). As examined below, these two figures feature prominently in the Sisodias’ mytho-history and claims to Mewar. The scroll served as visual accompaniment to bardic recitations of Sisodia history that were performed before the mahārāṇā to remind him of his dynasty’s excep­tional past.9 7 Joffee, “Art, Architecture and Politics in Mewar,” 58–83. 8 Ibid. 9 Talbot, “The Mewar Court’s Construction of History”; “Genealogical Scroll of the Rulers of Mewar,” in Johanna Williams ed in Kingdom of the Sun, 17, 138.

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figure 6.2 Detail of a painted genealogical scroll of the rulers of Mewar. Bapa Rawal stands before Harit Rishi in the upper right corner. Dated to 1730–40. Collection of the New York Public Library, Spencer Collection.

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figure 6.3 Detail of a painted genealogical scroll of the rulers of Mewar. A satī is depicted in the central space cell on the right. Collection of the New York Public Library, Spencer Collection.

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Trends and messages in Sisodia painting are echoed in the dynasty’s palace and temple architecture. We have seen Rajput patrons appropriate Mughal architectural styles to announce support of the empire and familiarity with its commissions. The Kachhwahas’ Jagat Shiromani temple and buildings at the Amber Fort prominently display contemporaneous late-sixteenth century Mughal formal and decorative programs. Similarly, the Bika Rathores’ Junagarh Fort draws from the Mughal Red Forts. In contrast, as Giles Tillotson notes, royal architecture in Mewar is characterized by “a strong conservative tendency.”10 Sections of the Udaipur City Palace dating to the seventeenth century, particularly those completed under Jagat Singh, rely heavily on Rāṇā Kumbha’s commissions at Chittorgarh. Notable appropriations include the hypostyle assembly hall, which was originally open on one side, and stacked jharokhas.11 Similarly, the Jagmandir and Mohan Mandir pleasure palaces on Lake Pichola in Udaipur, completed under Jagat Singh, strongly evoke Padmini’s thirteenth-century water palace at Chittorgarh.12 As with his painting commissions, Jagat Singh’s building activities were in many cases rebuttals to contemporaneous Mughal structures. The Sisodias’ architectural conservatism, reliance on indigenous styles, and competition with imperial commissions is best exemplified in Udaipur by the Jagdish temple, which Jagat Singh commissioned toward the end of his reign. Joffee posits that the temple’s formal similarity with the Jagat Shiromani was a direct response to the Kachhwaha temple (Fig. 6.4).13 She also cogently argues that the temple’s inscriptions, which laud its patron, and its highly visible location on the top of a hill in the capital city, were a rejoinder to the Delhi Jama Masjid, begun in 1650 under Shah Jahan.14 The Jagdish temple is highly archaized: the exterior is encrusted with bands of deep-relief friezes of Hindu deities and dancing women, the maṇḍapa has a prominent clerestory, and the lofty śikhara is in the śekharī style. Tillotson isolates medieval Rajput temples as the source of inspiration for the Jagdish temple’s renaissant style. Specifically, he asserts that it is “a re-creation of the great temples of the medieval Rajput dynasties, such as the Chandelas of Khajuraho.”15 While the Jagdish temple certainly shares formal and decorative similarities 10 11 12 13 14 15

Tillotson, The Rajput Palaces, 113. For further examples of renaissant features in the City Palace commissioned under Jagat Singh, see Joffee, “Art, Architecture and Politics,” 79–83. Tillotson The Rajput Palaces, 90. Joffee, “Art, Architecture and Politics,” 79–83. Joffee, “Art, Architecture and Politics,” 80. Ibid., 91. Ibid., 91–94. Tillotson, The Rajput Palaces, 113.

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figure 6.4 Jagdish temple, Udaipur (Mewar) commissioned by Maharāṇā Jagat Singh, mid-seventeenth century

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with the temples of Khajuraho, it is formally and stylistically closer to structures much nearer to home for Jagat Singh, such as Rāṇā Kumbha’s renaissant-style commissions at Chittorgarh and his renovations to the Eklingji temple. In fact, the forms and plans of the Eklingji and Jagdhish temple are remarkably similar, particularly in their polygonally-planned maṇḍapas with their distinctive phāṁsanā. Both the temples Chittorgarh and the Eklingji temples, built in the Maru-Gurjara renaissant style Kumbha pioneered, would have been nostalgic sites of memory for the Sisodias and are thus far likelier to have been Jagat Singh’s direct sources of inspiration. By referencing his eminent ancestor Kumbha through the appropriation of his architectural style, Jagat Singh promoted his own rule as similarly minded. Rāṇā Kumbha is remembered as one of Mewar’s most accomplished rulers. In addition to having been a successful military general who preserved Mewar’s independence against incursions from the neighboring sultans of Gujarat and Malwa, Kumbha was a scholar and prolific architectural patron.16 His enduring reputation as a defender of Mewar’s autonomy, was even co-opted by Rajputs outside Mewar. As noted in conjunction with the Jodha Rathore MaruGurjara-renaissant devals of Mahārājās Jaswant Singh and Ajit Singh at Mandore, Rāṇā Kumbha and his signature style were touchstones for Rajputs who sought to cast off the imperial yoke as Mughal sovereignty waned. To the ­Sisodias as well as for other Rajputs, Rāṇā Kumbha embodied the ideal of a sovereign Rajput past and resistance to outside powers. To build in his MaruGurjara renaissant style announced a commitment to those same ideals and united different Rajputs into a singular “imagined community.” The Sisodias chatrīs should be viewed in the same light as their paintings, particularly the genealogies, and their other architecture, such as the Jagdish temple. Like these examples, the Sisodias’ chatrīs display archaisms to reference ancestors, such as Rāṇā Kumbha, who secured the dynasty’s dharmik reputation.

Eklingji and Sisodia Political Legitimacy

As with the Bika Rathores and their kul devī Karni Mata and kul devā, Lak­ shminath, the history of the Sisodias and Eklingji are interwoven and referenced in their chatrīs. According to Mewari mytho-history, Shiva, in his form as Eklingji, spontaneously appeared before the patriarch of the Sisodia dynasty, 16

G.N. Sharma, “Maharana Kumbha: Cultural Achievements” in History and Culture of Ra­jas­than, 215–24.

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Bappa Rawal, and his guru, Harit Rishi, in Kailashpuri, near Udaipur, where the Sisodia dynastic temple to the deity now stands. Eklingji instructed Harit Rishi to appoint Bappa Rawal as king and his (Eklingji’s) dīvān. By the thirteenth century, this event had taken on the royal legitimizing function that remains current today. The episode sanctified the Sisodia line as ordained by the divine. To this day, Sisodia kings regard Eklingji as Mewar’s true ruler and consider themselves his dīvāns. After assuming power, each new ruler of Mewar visits Eklingji’s temple, where he receives the royal insignia of office from its priests.17 Another responsibility of the Sisodia mahārāṇā is to make a weekly pilgrimage to the temple. While there, he assumes the role of head priest. A painting in the British Museum dated to ca. 1830 depicts a Sisodia king, who, based on the distinctive beard and portly physique, is likely Bhim Singh (r. 1778–1828) (Fig. 6.5). Eklingji is given pride of place in the composition, draped in brocaded textiles and flowers, crowned, enshrined before offerings of sweets and flowers and under two honorific umbrellas. The Sisodia king is in attendance, dressed in a priest’s dhoti (wrapped lower garment), although his sumptuous jewels and halo indicate his extraordinary status. The king also performs the priest’s role of ringing a ceremonial bell and offering light to the image (ārtī). This is Eklingji’s court, where the Sisodia king is not supreme, but a dīvān. Numerous other paintings, such as one in the collection of the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation, Udaipur, painted by the court painters Bakhta and Chokha depict a mounted Mahaṛanā Bhim Singh in a stately procession to the Eklingji temple. The painting’s large size indicates that it was intended to be viewed by a large audience, to which it would circulate its message of Bhim Singh’s piety and his legitimacy to rule his earthly kingdom as dīvān to Eklingji. Eklingji’s temple is a palimpsest; its history offers a cycle of destruction and reconstruction over several centuries (Fig. 6.6). Each reconstruction conferred an additional layer of politically charged meaning to the site. Bappa Rawal, who greatly expanded the Sisodia territories and established the dynasty’s seat of power at Chittorgarh, is also credited with the construction of the site’s first temple.

17

Both A.F. Pinney History of Mewar, first published 1909 (Jodhpur: Books Treasure, reprint 2007), 2 and Tryna Lyons “The Changing Faces of Ekliṅgjī: A Dynastic Shrine and its Artists,” Artibus Asiae 58, no. 3–4 (1999), refer to the Ekliṇgamāhātmyam, a fifteenth century text that describes the god’s mytho-history and offers the genealogy of the rulers of Mewar. As befitting Eklingji’s status as the “true ruler” of Mewar, all royal inscriptions and documents, such as the mahārāṇās’ haqiqat bahiya, begin with the phrase “Śrī Eklingji,” in honor of the deity, a practice that continues today.

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figure 6.5 figure 110 Worship of enshrined liṇga with three faces (probably Mahārāṇā Bhim Singh of Mewar worshipping Eklingji), painting ca. 1830. Collection of the British Museum.

figure 6.6 Photograph of the Eklingji temple, outside of Udaipur (Mewar). Collection of the British Library, Reading Collection.

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Bappa Rawal’s original building and mūrti were destroyed during sultanate raids and have been rebuilt on several occasions. The first mūrti to appear in its present caturmukh (literally “four faces”) form was established by Rāṇā Hamir Singh (see Fig. 6.5). The mūrti takes the form of a liṅg (phallic form of Shiva) with four directional faces on the shaft. Each face is crowned by an elaborate coiffure of dreadlocks and represents Shiva’s manifestation as a different Hindu deity. Although the faces seem to identical one each side, attendant priests note that the western face represents the god as Brahma, the northern Vishnu, the eastern Surya, and the southern Shiva.18 Hamir Singh also extensively renovated the temple after Sultan Alla-ud-dinKhilji sacked it during a raid in the early-fourteenth century. For his association with Eklingji and liberating Chittorgarh from sultanate occupation, Hamir Singh is upheld as a pious and heroic warrior-king. His patronage of this particular form of the mūrti further associates the site and its deity with the Sisodia dynastic line through the conduit of a particularly accomplished ancestor. In the fifteenth century, Rāṇā Kumbha patronized a major phase of the temple’s rebuilding, which, together with his surviving Vishnu temple at the site, displays his signature Maru-Gurjara renaissant architectural style. Notably, in an inscription on the temple dated to 1460, Kumbha proclaims, “I am the personal servant of Eklinga.”19 The present mūrti and the temple’s last major rebuilding phase appear to have been carried out under the aegis of Rāṇā Raimal Singh (r. 1473–1509) in 1488.20 Rāṇā Kumbha’s second son, Raimal seized the throne from his older brother, Udaikaran Singh (r. 1468–73), who had murdered their father. Around this time, the sultan of Malwa, Ghiyath-ud-din, led a final devastating attack on the temple. The Mewar forces defeated the sultan and held him prisoner for a substantial ransom.21 The ransom undoubtedly provided Raimal with funds to restore the temple and, by extension, the dynasty’s reputation, which had been bruised by both the sultan’s attack and the royal patricide. The main temple as it now appears is entirely of a trabeate construction. The pillars are square planned at the bottom, octagonal in the middle, polygonal in the upper section, and terminate in four directional brackets, each with a high relief of a gana (dwarf). The garbha gṛha is preceded by a large maṇḍapa, polygonally planned on the exterior, octagonally planned on the interior, with 18 19 20 21

Lyons, “Changing Faces,” 253. Ulrike Teuscher, “Changing Eklingji,” Studies in History 21, no. 1 (2005): 1–16. Lyons, “The Changing Faces of Ekliṅgjī,” 256. Raimal’s renovations are documented in an inscription on the temple. Erskine, Mewar Residency, 18.

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a clerestory and a corbeled ceiling. The roof is of the phāṁsanā type, and the towering śikhara is of the śekharī type and ringed by clusters of stacked uraḥśṛṅgas. Outside of the maṇḍapa, directly opposite the temple’s main entrance, ­­­­­­i­­­­­­s a small freestanding pavilion enshrining a sculpture of Bappa Rawal, who holds his hands in añjali mudrā. The image of Bappa Rawal is axially aligned with, and perpetually taking darśan from, the Eklingji mūrti housed within the temple. Above the main doorway leading into the maṇḍapa, on the interior of the dome, and also in axial alignment to the mūrti, is a photograph of the previous mahārāṇā (Bhagwat Singh), again holding añjali mudrā. According to the temple priests, this location is reserved for an image of the current mahārāṇā’s immediate predecessor. Before the advent of photography, the late Sisodia rulers were depicted in painting in the same manner. The location of Bappa Rawal’s mūrti outside of the temple and the late mahārāṇā’s image on the interior (again, both facing the mūrti) installs the Sisodia kings in perpetual attendance to their kul devā. If Eklingji is the actual ruler of Mewar, then his temple may be regarded as his darbār, and when the Sisodia king is in attendance at the temple, he performs his legitimizing role both as priest and dīvān who rules Mewar as Eklingji’s representative. The layout of Eklingji’s temple visually reaffirms the reciprocal relationship between the Sisodia kings and their kul devā, as well as episodes from Mewar’s various golden ages, which were defined by valorous Sisodia rulers who vanquished invaders. Royal Sisodia chatrīs convey in their correlative forms, decoration, construction, and internal layouts the same legitimizing messages.

Eklingji’s Eternal Dīvāns at Mahasatiya

As has been examined in the previous chapters, the Kachhwaha, Naruka, and Rathore memorial commissions indicate that their patrons most stridently referenced their power, piety, and lineage during times of political change when social hierarchies were threatened. Similarly, the Sisodias first began memorializing their kings through chatrīs, and referring to their dynastic past and divinely sanctioned authority through those memorials, when their autonomy was compromised by their forced alliance with the Mughals in the early-seventeenth century. While the Kachhwahas and Jodha Rathores had begun building cenotaphs by at least the mid-sixteenth century, and the Bika Rathores by late in the same century, the Sisodias only adopted the practice in the first half of the seventeenth century, making them possibly the last Rajput dynasty to do so. It is

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figure 6.7 Chatrī of Amar Singh, Mahāsatiyā, Udaipur, commissioned by Maharāṇā Karan Singh II, 1620’s

impossible to identify the earliest chatrīs in any of the other Rajput states. The Sisodia memorial tradition is unique in that it is absolutely possible to identify the dynasty’s first memorial (Fig. 6.7). Mewar’s first chatrī was commissioned in memory of Mahārāṇā Amar Singh I. The memorialization of their ancestors through chatrīs began when the Sisodias were faced with one of the greatest threats to their reputation, and the earliest chatrī commemorates the king who allied with that threat, the Mughals. Between the early-fourteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, the rulers of Mewar successfully maintained their state’s independence. In 1614, when Amar Singh I was finally compelled to accept Mughal suzerainty, Mewar became the last Rajput house to do so. Although the Mughals did grant the Sisodias special concessions, thereby marking them as extraordinary, Amar Singh and his immediate successors must have considered the forced conciliation the single most humiliating moment in their history. The defeat would have been particularly shameful for Amar Singh, whose father, Rāṇā Pratap Singh, had established himself as a paradigm of Rajput bravery while fighting against the Mughals in the battle of Haldighati (1576). Although the battle was essentially a draw, to this day Rāṇā Pratap remains one of the most celebrated Rajputs not

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only among his own community but in the wider community of Rajasthanis. His memory was later co-opted during the independence movement, and he was posthumously designated an Indian freedom fighter and, in some cases, cast as a proponent of Hindu communalism. As Pratap Singh’s son and heir, Amar Singh fought alongside his father.22 Pratap Singh’s foreign policy and political career were similar to those of the Jodha Rathore ruler Rao Maldev, who kept sultanate forces out of Marwar and refused to ally with the Mughals. As discussed in chapter 3, when Rājā Udai Singh allied with Akbar and compromised his dynasty’s reputation, he commissioned a deval for his father, Maldev, in an archaized form that both lauded the memory of the great king and deceptively promoted its patron as dedicated to his kingdom’s autonomy. Amar Singh of Mewar was likewise the son and heir of an exceptionally beloved king and forced to ally with the Mughals. During the latter half of the sixteenth century, most of the Rajputs allied with the Mughals and joined in their campaigns in Mewar. The Sisodias severed ties with these pro-Mughal Rajput courts and adopted a relatively isolationist policy, which they maintained until 1614. While the Sisodias would surely have been aware of the chatrī tradition, they did not appropriate it until the early-seventeenth century, several decades after the majority of other Rajputs and after they had allied with the Mughals. Why did the Sisodias begin constructing chatrīs so late? And why did Amar Singh not commission a memorial for his father? Even if Amar Singh had desired to build a chatrī for his father, it may not have been possible: for much of his rule, funds were simply not available. Considering that Pratap Singh’s energies and funds had been fully invested in the protracted defensive war against the Mughals for nearly his entire reign, it is hardly surprising that little building activity is associated with his or the early part of Amar Singh’s rule. Even after Rāṇā Pratap’s own father, Rāṇā Udai Singh II (r. 1537–72), established Udaipur as the new Sisodia capitol and began the City Palace, building was halted until fighting with the Mughals ceased.23 Additionally, Amar Singh ruled Mewar for only four years after surrendering to Jahangir, and he died in 1620. Due to the Sisodias’ insular foreign policy prior to the Mughal alliance, Amar Singh may not have been aware of how other Rajputs, such as Udai Singh of Marwar, were exploiting the memorials they commissioned for their fathers to circulate aspects of their own public identities. However, Amar Singh’s son and successor, Mahārāṇā Karan Singh, certainly would have been. According to the stipulations of the Mewar surrender, the Sisodia princes were required to 22 23

Erskine, Mewar Residency, 21. Tillotson, The Rajput Palaces, 105.

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spend time at the Mughal court. Karan Singh would doubtlessly have seen the royal tombs, which are conspicuous in the urban fabrics of Delhi, Agra, and Lahore. He would probably also have been instructed in how the tombs’ forms and styles served their patrons’ legitimizing programs. The emperor Jahangir tells us in the Jahangirnāma that when news of Amar Singh’s death reached the imperial court, he was with the king’s younger son and grandson. The emperor himself then appointed Karan Singh, Amar Singh’s eldest son, as the ruler of Mewar.24 This account indicates that the Sisodias held a privileged position in the Mughal court and spent time with the emperors. Such occasions would have exposed the Sisodia princes to the Mughal visual vocabulary of kingship, which they selectively appropriated. This passage also reveals that despite the Sisodias’ cultivated aloofness from the Mughals, the emperor’s benediction was nevertheless a meaningful aspect of the transference of power from one king of Mewar to the next. At court, Karan Singh would undoubtedly have also fraternized with Rajputs who used the building of their fathers’ chatrīs to legitimize their own claims to political authority. Finally, Karan Singh would have been exposed to the tradition of constructing politically meaningful memorials through the figure of Prince Khurrum, who fled to Mewar when he rebelled against his father, Jahangir, and attempted to usurp the Mughal throne.25 Karan Singh’s imperial guest took the regnal name of Shah Jahan and went on to construct the world’s most lavish tomb, the Taj Mahal. Prince Khurrum’s choice of refuge was probably informed by the old adage “My enemy’s enemy is my friend.” He doubtlessly hoped to capitalize on the fact that the Sisodias were among his father’s most recent enemies and that Amar Singh’s son would be interested in fomenting discord within the imperial house. Indeed, Karan Singh’s willingness to harbor the seditious prince indicates that the Sisodias’ treaty with the Mughals was superficial and that their pride was still wounded. After his exposure to the Indo-Islamic tomb and Rajput chatrī traditions, Karan Singh would have been compelled to erect a chatrī in his father’s memory. On the seventeenth-century north Indian political stage, funerary memorials—both tombs and chatrīs—were an integral component of the visual vocabulary of rulership. During the Sisodias’ period of isolation, the other Raj­ put courts had established chatrī construction as a major performance of Rajput kingship. With the abandonment of their isolationist policies, the Sisodias would have come into contact with the memorials of the Mughal and other Rajput courts, and the absence of a permanent memorial tradition in their own kingdom must have appeared conspicuous. Moreover, to not build a chatrī 24 25

Thackston, trans., Jahangirnama, 322–23. Tillotson, The Rajput Palaces, 116.

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could (as would later be demonstrated in the cases of the two nineteenthcentury mahārājās of Jaipur, Jagat Singh and Jai Singh III) be construed as dishonorable to the late king’s memory. Having been thrust back into contact with the other Rajputs, it appears to have suddenly become incumbent upon Karan Singh to participate in this recently established legitimizing practice of Rajput kingship. While Karan Singh inherited a throne with a tarnished reputation, the peace his father secured ensured that he had both time and funds to commission large-scale architectural projects. This mahārāṇā is responsible for major additions to the City Palace; beginning construction of Jagmandir, the island pleas­ ure palace where his imperial guest and political ally Shah Jahan was en­sconced during his exile;26 and commissioning his father’s monumental chatrī. Amar Singh I’s chatrī offers no dedicatory inscription. However, Karan Singh’s architectural patronage and exposure to the Indo-Islamic and Rajput memorial traditions make him the most likely candidate for patron of the structure. The chatrī was certainty completed by the early part of his son’s rule, as evidenced by an inscription commemorating a visit to the chatrī by that son, Mahārāṇā Jagat Singh, in 1633, to pay his respects to his grandfather, Amar Singh. The Sisodias’ nearly half century of isolation and their lack of resources together account for why they did not begin constructing chatrīs before the early-seventeenth century. The shift in their financial situation and their exposure to politically meaningful memorials during Mahārāṇā Karan Singh’s reign explains why they adopted the practice at that particular moment and why Amar Singh I’s chatrī was Mewar’s first. Despite their forced alliance with the Mughals, after 1614 the Sisodias continued to promote themselves as paragons of their jatī. For them, as for other Rajputs, the chatrī carried no inherent religious (Islamic) or political (sultanate or Mughal) associations. Chatrīs only become politically and religiously meaningful through their individual formal and decorative programs. Like many Rajput kings before him, Karan Singh adopted the practice of commissioning a memorial for his father to legitimize his own rule at a historical moment colored by internal and external change. Karan Singh had indeed learned well from his Mughal and Rajput associates; he manipulated the formal and decorative program of his father’s chatrī to recast his dynasty’s public identity at a moment when it had been compromised, and to support the existing system of social hierarchy. Amar Singh’s chatrī inaugurated the royal Sisodia dynastic necropolis of Mahasatiya, now just outside Udaipur’s old city. The chatrī was possibly the 26

Masters, Maharana, 63.

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largest in the Rajput kingdoms at the time of its construction, its height exaggerated by its location on a large plinth approximately ten feet tall. The beigecolored marble-faced structure is polygonaly planned with an octagonally planned, echoing the plan of the Eklingji temple maṇḍapa. Each of the four directional entrances is flanked by a high-relief image of a temple-style dvārapāla (door guardian), and continuous relief bands offer kīrtimukhas and icons of Rajput kingship—alcohol bottles, horses, lions, and elephants—along the exterior walls. The chatrī has a prominent clerestory and is surmounted by a smooth, unsegmented dome of corbeled construction. The entire structure is trabeate, with pillars that are square planned on the bottom and polygonally planned on their upper portions. Each pillar terminates in four directional brackets with high reliefs of ganas. Although the forms of the exterior domes of the two structures are markedly different, the remaining formal programs of Amar Singh I’s chatrī and the maṇḍapa of Eklingji’s temple have much in common. While Amar Singh’s chatrī quotes liberally from Eklingji’s temple, the Mughalized forms offered by contemporaneous Kachhwaha chatrīs are conspicuously absent, a situation mirrored in certain Sisodia arts of other media. Through its appropriation of the temple’s formal program, Amar Singh’s chatrī references both the Sisodia kul devā and the celebrated Sisodia ancestors who patronized the various phases of construction of his temple. Recall that as the true king of Mewar, Eklingji appoints his dīvāns, the Sisodia kings, to govern in his stead and they rule only with his benediction. Through its association with eminent Sisodia ancestors—Bappa Rawal and Rāṇās Hamir, Kumbha, and Raimal—the formal program the chatrī shares with the temple announces the continuity of Sisodia lineage from those rulers through Amar Singh I to his son, Karan Singh, the chatrī’s patron. Karan Singh may well have learned from the Mughals how to manipulate architectural motifs on funerary structures to convey dynastic continuity. Just as imperial Mughal tombs evoke their Timurid lineage through domes and īwans, so Amar Singh’s and later Sisodia chatrīs signal their illustrious ancestors and the ultimate fount of the dynasty’s authority, Eklingji, through features appropriated from the Eklingji temple. Thus Amar Singh’s chatrī offers another example of a politically charged renaissant architectural style that its patron appropriated when the dynasty’s dharm had been compromised and its reputation was in crisis. Like Rao Maldev’s deval in Marwar, Amar Singh I’s chatrī belies its patron’s true political situation and represents a grand architectural statement of denial. At the time of the chatrī’s construction, the actual ruler of Mewar was in fact no longer Eklingji but the Mughal emperor. As revealed through the passage from the Jahangirnāma, only he could sanction the Sisodia mahārāṇās’ political auth­ority.

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figure 6.8 Interior of Amar Singh’s chatrī

Strident references to Eklingji and Sisodia kingship continue in the interior of Amar Singh’s chatrī (Fig. 6.8). The internal organization of this chatrī is repeated in subsequent chatrīs until the late nineteenth century, when (as it did in Bikaner) the British prohibition of satī altered the iconographic program in the Sisodia memorials. Centrally placed in Amar Singh’s chatrī is a mūrti of Eklingji evoking the one Rāṇā Raimal commissioned for the state temple (Fig. 6.9). Behind the mūrti, on its western side, is a square-planned stele of a type referred to in Mewari as a namūnā or pūrvaj.27 27

Meaning “example” or “specimen,” it is unclear why the term namūnā is used to refer to the stele. Meaning “ancestor,” pūrvaj would seem to be more appropriate, as it signifies the

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figure 6.9 Eklingji mūrti and the namūnā, interior of Amar Singh’s chatrī

The eastern side of the namūnā, which faces the Eklingji mūrti, offers a relief panel depicting Amar Singh and his ten satīs, each holding añjali mudrā (Fig. 6.10). Thus, as suggested by the spatial organization of the Eklingji temple, which the placement of this panel facing the mūrti mirrors, the deceased Sisodia mahārāṇā stands in eternal service to his kul devā in his darbār. Just as the Bika Rathore kings of Bikaner are cast through the visual and epigraphic programs on their funerary steles as dīvāns to their kul deva, Lakshminath, in royal ancestors depicted on the steles’ sides. However, my Sisodia Rajput and Brahmin informants maintain that the former is the “proper” name for the stele and that only members of the lower classes refer to the stele by the latter term.

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figure 6.10

Eastern side of Amar Singh’s namūnā with reliefs of the King and his satīs facing the Eklingji image

Vaikuntha (Vishnu’s heaven), the mahārāṇās of Mewar are depicted on their namūnās as Eklingji’s dīvāns in Kailashvas (Shiva’s heaven). The namūnā’s southern panel depicts the mounted mahārāṇā; the western panel offers his five concubine satīs, each holding a lotus bud; and the northern panel depicts Amar Singh, together with his satī queens, performing liṅga pūjā (worshiping a liṅga through affusion) (Fig. 6.11).28 The presentation of 28

The combined number of female figures on the northern and southern panels is the same as the number of figures on the eastern panel. The concubines’ sensuous postures and the queens’ more reserved ones echoes the depiction of these groups of satīs on Rao Kalyanmal’s devalī in Devi Kund Sagar, Bikaner. The social status of the female figures and their iconographic location on the namūnās was explained by Pūjārī Tika Ram Sharma, who performs all of the memorial services at Mahasatiya (personal communication, December 12, 2006). This depiction of the Sisodia mahārāṇās engaged in liṅga pūjā in their memorials parallels depictions of certain Shaivite Chola kings of south India in their memorial temples. For example, see Balasubrahmanyam’s analysis of the seventhcentury Shiva temple at Konerirajapuram, in which he asserts Queen Sembiyan Mahadevi built in memory of her husband, King Gandaraditya. A panel in the temple’s interior depicts Gandaraditya (identified through an inscription) similarly engaged in liṅga pūjā (Early Chola Temples, 165–66, pl. 167). What is unclear however from Balasubrahmanyam’s

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Amar Singh and his queens who became satīs performing liṅga pūjā on the northern side of the namūnā

Amar Singh in worship on the northern panel references the Sisodias’ devotion to Eklingji and his legitimacy-conferring right to serve as priest in the royal dynastic temple. The frieze program on Amar Singh’s namūnā established a mode that, with a few variations, remained in use until the late-nineteenth century. What changed with the construction of the namūnā for his son, Jagat Singh I, was the mahārāṇā’s posture on the eastern panel, facing the mūrti. Rather than holding añjali mudrā, he holds a lotus blossom in one hand and a sword in the other, as he faces Eklingji, surrounded by his satīs, who continue to display añjali mudrā. The exchange of añjali mudrā for swords and lotus buds in the later namūnās in no way negates the reading that the eastern panel depicts the king as dīvān in Eklingji’s darbār; depictions of Mughal and Rajput darbārs in paintings and photographs similarly show high-ranking attendants holding swords.

analysis is whether the temple was simply erected in the king’s memory (and he was cremated elsewhere) or if, like the Rajput chatrīs, the structure marks the location of his cremation.

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Beginning with Karan Singh’s memorial, it became standard practice to ­ epict, on the southern side of the namūnā, the mahārāṇā reclining on a d swinging dais, attended by his lower-ranking satīs. Additionally, during the early-eighteenth century, sculptures of Nandi, Shiva’s bull mount, which are traditionally situated opposite the mūrti in Shiva temples, were also installed in the chatrīs, on the eastern side of the mūrtis. The inclusion of Nandi further likens the chatrī to a Shiva temple. The formal and decorative programs of the Sisodia chatrīs shifted slightly between the construction of Amar Singh I’s memorial and that of Mahārāṇā Sangram Singh II. While the Sisodia chatrīs constructed during this period of nearly a century retain the pillar style, trabeate construction, and corbeled domes of Eklingji’s temple, beginning with Karan Singh’s cenotaph, they are of a significantly reduced scale and lack the clerestory and reliefs on their exteriors. The more modest formal and decorative programs, coupled with reduced emphasis on legitimacy and Sisodia dynastic continuity, in the chatrīs from the mid-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries may be explained by the dynasty’s stable relations with the imperial house during that period. During the reigns of Karan Singh and Jagat Singh, which coincided with that of Shah Jahan, Sisodia-Mughal relations ran smoothly. The emperor treated his former hosts well, and Mewar enjoyed its semi-autonomous status. This was a period of prosperity in the state, during which these two mahārāṇās, especially Jagat Singh, focused their attentions on artistic commissions, among them the latter’s monumental renaissant-style Jagdish temple in Udaipur and lengthy, illustrated genealogies. Considering his prolific patronage of exceptionally lavish works of art, if Jagat Singh had wished to commission an innovative and sumptuously decorated chatrī for his father, Karan Singh, surely it would have been possible. But as illustrated by the Kachhwaha examples at Jaipur, chatrī patrons who ascend stable thrones seldom deviate from established memorial traditions. Mewar’s fortunes changed under its next two rulers, Raj Singh I (r. 1652–80) and Jai Singh (r. 1680–98), whose reigns saw severe drought and (as in Marwar during the reigns of Mahārājās Jaswant Singh and Ajit Singh) renewed altercations with the Mughals under Aurangzeb. The Sisodias’ refusal to pay Aurangzeb’s reinstated jizya tax resulted in a series of raids, during which the imperial troops vandalized several of the state’s temples.29 What appears to have 29

Sources mention Aurangzeb’s troops sacking temples in Chittorgarh, Udaipur, and other sites in the state, but not the Eklingji temple (Erskine, Mewar Residency, 22–23). Considering the importance of this shrine, we may reasonably conclude that the textual silence indicates that the temple was exempt from Aurangzeb’s raids.

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changed this time is that the Mewar-Mughal war probably did not have the same devastating impact on Sisodia pride and funds as the kingdom’s previous war with Jahangir. While Jahangir succeeded in eliciting the Sisodias’ acknowledgement of Mughal supremacy, history records that Aurangzeb and Mahārāṇā Jai Singh reached a truce that preserved the honor of both powers; the jizya was repealed in exchange for certain lands.30 Under Jai Singh’s successor, Amar Singh II the rulers of Mewar, Marwar, and Jaipur formed a triumvirate against the Mughals, which was sealed through renewed intermarriages with Sisodia women. As has been explored in chapter 1, Jai Singh’s two sons’ skirmish for the throne, which was a direct consequence of intermarrying with the Sisodias, resulted in the construction of two of Jaipur’s most politically charged chatrīs. As examined in chapter 3, Ajit Singh of Marwar advertised his alliance with the Sisodia mahārāṇā through the appropriation of the Maru-Gurjara renaissant architectural style for his father’s deval. Because this style was favored by Rāṇā Kumbha of Sisodia, the Marwar mahārājā associated himself with one of Mewar’s most celebrated rulers and his ethos of resistance and autonomy, and marked a reversal of the Jodha ­Rathores’ foreign policy with the Mughals. While Rajput-Mughal strife and the resultant political alliance between the three Rajput states impacted memorials constructed in Jaipur and Marwar during in the late seventeenth century and immediately after, the three generations of Sisodia kings who ruled during that period are not commemorated through exceptional chatrīs. Jagat Singh’s chatrī is a near facsimile of the he built for his father, Karan Singh. Inscriptions on their chatrīs indicate that Raj Singh’s and Jai Singh’s memorials were not even constructed until 1928, during the reign of Mahārāṇā Fateh Singh. It is unclear why Amar Singh II did not commission a chatrī for his father, Jai Singh, particularly in light of the fact that the former was a prolific architectural patron who commissioned extensive additions to the City Palace.31 The Sisodias’ renewed pride, which was reaffirmed by the rulers of Jaipur and Marwar, and the lack of emphasis on royal memorials between the midseventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries may be compared to the situation in Marwar during the late-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries and in Jaipur from the early to mid-nineteenth century. The characteristics shared by these three states during these periods include stable political situations and the smooth transfer of power from one generation to the next. As has been demonstrated through an examination of Marwar’s and Jaipur’s memorial tra30 31

Hendley, The Rulers of India, 38. Tillotson, The Rajput Palaces, 109.

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ditions, Rajput rulers with nothing to prove tend to make unimaginative chatrī patrons. David Kertzer’s analysis of rulers’ symbolic expressions of legitimacy and power, which was employed as a lens through which to view the monotony in memorial commissions in Jaipur during the politically stable period of the early to mid-nineteenth century, is likewise apt for an analysis of the Sisodia chatrīs constructed during the mid-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries. As Kertzer aptly notes, maintenance of a previous ruler’s symbols of power communicates that the new ruler intends to govern according to the same model. To discard the former ruler’s symbols is to announce a new political order, or a response to crisis.32 Thus, as has been demonstrated through close readings of memorial traditions throughout Rajasthan, continuity in a state’s chatrī style communicates continuity in the administration and the dynastic lineage; that is, a stable government. Trouble once again brewed in Mewar during the early eighteenth century, with the expansion of Maratha power in the state. By 1736, Mahārāṇā Jagat Singh II was forced to enter into a treaty with the Marathas and pay them a chauth (a tax of one-quarter of the annual state revenue). This chauth was undoubtedly a blow to Sisodia pride. Rather than attempting to reclaim his state’s autonomy, Jagat Singh II appears to have turned his back on affairs of state and dedicated himself instead to artistic patronage and grand spectacles of pleasure. He commissioned another pleasure palace and summer retreat in Udaipur, the Jag Niwas, as well as several villas. The frequent displays of pomp, festivals, hunts, and elephant games he hosted are commemorated in detail by his court painters.33 Also part of Jagat Singh II’s extravagant visual program of denial was the monumental chatrī he commissioned for his father, Mahārāṇā Sangram Singh II (Fig. 6.12). Nearly a century later, Mahārājā Sawai Madho Singh II of Jaipur would reiterate the line of Kachhwaha descent from Sawai Jai Singh through his adopted father, Sawai Ram Singh, and finally to himself with the construction of the latter’s chatrī, which was a near exact copy of his ancestor Jai Singh’s. Similarly, Mahārāṇā Jagat Singh II commissioned a chatrī for his father, Sangram Singh II, that is almost identical to Mahārāṇā Amar Singh I’s. However, unlike descent from the figure of Jai Singh for the Kachhwahas, descent from Amar Singh I could not in itself have been a particularly potent expression of legitimacy for the Sisodia kings. What Jagat Singh could hope to gain through the appropriation of his ancestor’s chatrī style was the reference to Eklingji, his 32 33

Ibid., 44–45. Andrew Topsfield, The City Palace Museum Udaipur: Paintings of Mewar Court Life (Ahmedabad: Mapin, 1990), 15.

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Chatrī of Sangram Singh II, Mahāsatiyā, Udaipur, commissioned by Maharāṇā Jagat Singh II, first half of the eighteenth century

temple, and, as a corollary, other illustrious Sisodia ancestors whose lineage could bolster the dynasty’s image, which had been compromised by Jagat Singh’s treaty with the Marathas.34 Ultimately, it was the problems with the Marathas that led all the Rajput houses, including the Sisodias, to ally with the British in 1818. The majority of the Rajput states embraced their new colonial overlords (at least superficially) and prospered under their rule. As has been examined, the Rajput rulers advertised their ties to the new power on several different stages: in their home states through the patronage of Indo-Saracenic-style buildings, and on the international stage through attending British imperial ceremonies in India and England and supporting the British during the world wars. The Sisodias expressed their degree of commitment to the British empire by participating in few of these performances of acquiescence. Memorials constructed during the colonial period at Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Bikaner offer variations on the Indo-Saracenic architectural style. Similarly, 34

The Sisodias’ obligation to pay the Marathas the chauth was certainly a financial burden, particularly in the mid-eighteenth century when Mewar was beset by severe drought (Erskine, Mewar Residency, 24).

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references to satī abruptly cease in Bikaner devalīs during the early colonial period, communicating the Bika Rathores’ readiness to concede to the demands made by their new sovereigns. In contrast, Sisodia chatrīs maintain a conservative, archaized architectural style during the colonial period and after. However, just as their treaties with the Mughals and Marathas left an impress on the Sisodia memorial tradition, so too, ultimately, did their alliance with the British. As elsewhere in Rajasthan, the greatest colonial impact on Mewari funerary and memorial traditions was the prohibition of satī. Pro-British Rajput states such as Bikaner readily complied with the ban. The last royal satī in that state occurred in 1825, and its abolition evinced a major shift in Bika Rathore funerary art. Mewar, in contrast, was less compliant. Four years after the deaths of Mota Singh and Deep Kunwar in Bikaner, four of Mahārāṇā Bhim Singh’s wives and four of his concubines joined him at his pyre, acts duly recorded visually through their presence on his namūnā. Mewar was the last Rajput dynasty to abandon satī. The state’s final case occurred in 1861, during the cremation of Mahārāṇā Swarup Singh (r. 1842–61).35 While no “miracles” surrounded this satī, as they had in Deep Kunwar’s case, the new ruler and Swarup Singh’s successor, Shambhu Singh (r. 1861–74), had just cause to ensure that his predecessor’s funerary rites did not deviate from tradition: the heirless Swarup Singh, who was himself adopted, had in turn adopted Shambhu Singh, his great nephew, a month before he died. Mahārāṇā Shambhu Singh was himself the first ruler of Mewar to go to his pyre alone. The construction of his chatrī marks a new organizational program in the Sisodia memorials (Figs 6.13–6.14). Beginning with this cenotaph, Sisodia chatrīs respond to the absence of satī by omitting the namūnā and instead offer only mūrtis of Eklingji and Nandi. Amar Singh was the first ruler of Mewar to be memorialized through a chatrī. However, Sisodia kings who ruled long before him are now similarly commemorated through chatrīs, all erected during the twentieth century. These memorials maintain the trabeate construction, corbeled dome, Eklingji mūrti, and namūnā of Sisodia chatrīs constructed in Mahasatiya prior to the colonial period, and they offer brief inscriptions. In 1938 Mahārāṇā Bhopal Singh (r. 1930–55) commissioned a chatrī for his esteemed ancestor Rāṇā Pratap Singh (Fig. 6.15). The chatrī stands in the 35

Mewar’s British resident commissioner, Colonel W.F. Eden, describes Swarup Sigh’s śav yatrā and the single woman who became his satī—a dancing girl from the palace. W.F. Eden, Report on the Political Administration of Rajputana for the Years 1865–1867 (unpublished manuscript).

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Chatrī of Shambu Singh, Mahāsatiyā, Udaipur, commissioned by Maharāṇā Sajjan Singh late-nineteenth century

village of Chawand, where Pratap Singh commissioned numerous temples and the palace from which he ruled. A lengthy inscription on the memorial commences with praise for Eklingji and refers to Pratap Singh as the Sun of the Hindus. It notes the mahārāṇā’s involvement in the battle of Haldighati and concludes by naming “the current mahārāṇā,” Bhopal Singh, as patron of the chatrī. In calling attention to Bhopal Singh’s patronage, the inscription reaffirms his lineage from his illustrious ancestor, who was integral to the formation of the Siso­dias’ self-representation as resolutely dharmik and autonomous.

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figure 6.14

Interior of Shambu Singh’s chatrī with Eklingji mūrti and recumbent Nandi

figure 6.15

Chatrī of Rana Pratap, Chawand village, commissioned in 1938 by Mahārāṇā Bhopal Singh

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By extension, the reference legitimizes Bhopal Singh’s position as the “current mahā­rāṇā.” Bhopal Singh’s rule coincided with that of the Bika Rathore mahārājā Ganga Singh, who patronized the extensive chatrī renovation and construction project in Bikaner. These two Rajput kings fashioned markedly different public identities for themselves during the colonial era. However, they both responded to the threats the newly established British Raj posed to their authority by commissioning chatrīs for ancestors who had died long before the emergence of this memorial form. In so doing, they visually increased their own presence in public space and reiterated their lineage from ancestors who had defended that space, at a time when their power was compromised by a new empire.

Conclusion

For the Sisodias, as sometimes for other Rajputs, art offered an arena to safely voice their protest against the imperial court. Integral to their rhetoric of protest was promotion of their superiority. This was claimed through their descent from dharmik ancestors who had successfully secured Mewar’s autonomy from the sultanates and (for several decades) the Mughals, as well as through the living king’s role as Eklingji’s dīvān. As with the Jodha Rathores under Mughal rule, protest frequently manifested as conspicuous appropriations from lieux de mémoire associated with a valiant, rebellious past, which provided opportunities for restorative nostalgia. To the Sisodias and the Jodha Rathores, renaissant artistic styles were a means to deny and reconstruct their political present. The royal temple to Eklingji was, and remains, a lieu de mémoire signifying bygone golden ages, Sisodia triumphal rebound, and the dynasty’s divine ordinance to rule Mewar. The Sisodias referred to this politically charged sacred space in their memorial commissions and harnessed its layered meanings through the appropriation of the temple’s internal organization and construction methods. The Sisodias were the last Rajput dynasty to invent a chatrī tradition. Karan Singh, the first mahārāṇā to spend time at the Mughal court and renew contacts with other Rajput courts after a nearly half-century hiatus, was unsurprisingly Mewar’s first chatrī patron. Despite their Indo-Islamic genesis, chatrīs appear to have carried, for the Rajput audience, no associations with the Mughals or Islam. Moreover, by the early-seventeenth century the fact that all the other Rajput houses had adopted this memorial form to commemorate their ancestors secured the chatrī’s status as a sign that irrefutably signified Hinduism, royal Rajput lineage, and the political legitimacy of its patron. By the early

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seventeenth century, for a Rajput king to not participate in chatrī patronage would have suggested the absence of those qualities and, hence, his unworthi­ness to rule. The chatrī’s distance from its Indo-Islamic prototype and its instatement into the Rajputs’ visual vocabulary of kingship ensured that even the Sisodias, who to this day promote their living king as the Sun of the Hindus and the most dharmik of all Rajputs, were compelled to commemorate their ancestors through this memorial form and exploit it to advance aspects of their identity. As announced through the homologous layouts and construction techniques found in the Sisodia chatrīs and their dynastic temple, their primary identity is that of being Eklingji’s eternal dīvāns in his heavenly darbār. If, as the Sisodias have always claimed, Eklingji is Marwar’s true sovereign, then as he is appointed directly by Eklingji, the mahārāṇā’s terrestrial power is uncontestable.

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Conclusion: Beyond Rajasthan Royal Rajput chatrī patrons manipulated the memory of their predecessors to address concerns fundamental to their rule, including lineage, legitimacy, and political authority. Chatrī building is also inherently territorial, as it locates ancestral remains in the very lands the successor and patron ruled, marking its sites with a politically meaningful form. Rajput rulers came into contact with the Indo-Islamic courts and understood the legitimizing messages their tombs conveyed. Each Rajput house then invented a tradition of memorialization through a built form that was either intrinsic to the Indic iconography of extraordinariness through its umbrella shape or evocative of a particular lieu de mémoire. For the Kachhwahas, the sites of memory were Rājā Man Singh’s chatrī and the Jagat Shiromani temple; for the Jodha Rathores, Maha-Maru and Maru-Gurjara-style temples; and for the Sisodias, their state temple to Eklingji. By the seventeenth century, chatrī construction was as firmly established a performance of Rajput kingship as holding darbārs, honoring dynastic deities, and patronizing the arts. As far as I am aware, all the Rajput royal and aristocratic families in the plains, including those whose erstwhile kingdoms are now in the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, memorialized their dead through chatrīs. For reasons unknown, Rajputs of the Pahari region (western Himalayan foothills) appear to have never taken up the practice. It is far beyond the scope of a single book to investigate all the Rajput chatrī baghs. Among those not included in this one, but certainly deserving of scholarly attention, are the necropolises in the former kingdoms of Bundi, Kotah, and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan; Orchha in Uttar Pradesh; and Kutch in Gujarat. Rulers of the Jat kingdoms in Rajasthan also built chatrīs, of which the largest and most lavishly decorated are in Bharatpur. Each necropolis offers dozens of memorials with distinctive forms and decorations. The style, scale, and construction material of the chatrīs in those kingdoms have been, as with those we have seen throughout this study, subject to sudden and radical shifts. The patrons probably also grappled with crises and sought to promote their authority through their fathers’ memorials. Power, authority, and prestige are not concerns exclusive to political spheres. This study has also considered how members of other communities in Rajasthan, the mercantile Baniyas and religious Dadu Panthis, similarly employed

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004300569_009

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their chatrīs to reify claims to fortune and influence. Members of those two communities appropriated the chatrī from the Rajputs and, while maintaining the standard domed-kiosk form, crafted decorative programs appropriate to their respective communal identities. Among the other nonroyal communities who built chatrīs are certain Hindu religious orders such as the Shaivite Dashnamis. This study concludes with a brief consideration of the chatrīs built two nonRajput royal communities, Marathas and Sikhs, to underscore just how central this built form was to assertions of political legitimacy in early modern north India. As has been explored in relation to chatrī developments in certain Rajput kingdoms, particularly Jaipur, Marwar, and Mewar, the decline of Mughal power in the eighteenth century initiated great change throughout north India. The waning empire created a void numerous communities aspired to fill. Among those politically upwardly mobile communities were the Marathas and Sikhs. Eager to promote themselves as legitimate rulers and to cloak their nonroyal origins, their rulers studied and selectively appropriated aspects of Mughal and Rajput visual language and performances of kingship, including memorialization through architectural structures. The Marathas and Sikhs did not underestimate the chatrī’s ability to carve out communal space and the capacity of its formal and decorative programs to reach into the past and locate the memorialized, the patron, the dynasty, and community in a golden age. Accordingly, rulers of these two communities appropriated for their chatrīs the architectural forms, decorative schemes, and sacred and secular meanings of lieux de mémoire from their own pasts.

Memorializing Marathas in Their New Capitals

The Marathas are a Hindu community comprised of several different dynasties that herald from Maharashtra, in the Deccan. The community was united under the warrior-king Shivaji to form the Maratha Confederacy in the early-eighteenth century. Maratha forces expanded their territory to the north, posing a major threat to Mughal rule, and subjugated and levied hefty taxes on numerous Rajput kingdoms. By the end of the century, several Maratha generals had proclaimed themselves kings of their own independent states in north and central India: the Scindias in Ujjain and then Gwalior, the Holkars in Indore, the Gaekwads in Baroda, and the Bhonsles in Nagpur.1 1 For more on the history of the Maratha Empire, see Stuart Gordon, The Marathas: 1600–1818 (New Delhi: Cambridge University, 1998).

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Maratha identity is now associated with rulership and defense, characteristics that have historically been associated with Kshatriya dharm. However, few of the Maratha dynasties are able to legitimately claim Kshatriya heritage.2 This fact must have been a critical threat to their authority, especially when sites such as the Scindia capital of Gwalior already had long histories under earlier royal dynasties, including several Rajput families, various sultanates, and Mughals, before they came under Maratha rule. Each of these dynasties left its impress on the city’s built environment. The most outstanding visible reminder of Gwalior’s pre-Maratha past is the sprawling Gwalior Fort that crowns a ridge overlooking the city. Gwalior’s largest and most prominent landmark, the fort was constructed under various dynasties between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. As newcomers in their territories, the Marathas’ subjects were diverse—Marathas and other Maharashtrians being in the minority. The Marathas therefore came to their new states with a need to justify their dominion over them and to promote themselves as the legitimate rulers of those places. Although they were effectively Maratha vassals, the Rajputs offered the dominant and best established model of Hindu rulership in north India, and the Marathas quickly appropriated select aspects of Rajput public identity.3 The Marathas indeed emulated the Rajputs’ performances of rulership even before they established their own kingdoms, while they were still based in the Deccan, indicating that they recognized the necessity of doing so early in their political careers. The Marathas began constructing chatrīs only after contact with the Raj­ puts. A number of Maratha chatrīs in the Deccan date to the late-seventeenth century, the beginning of their rise to power.4 However, the largest Maratha chatrīs commemorate independent Maratha rulers in their new kingdoms. Each Maratha dynasty devised distinct architectural forms for its chatrīs. As exemplified by the chatrī of Madho Rao Scindia (with whose cremation this book began), the most popular form for the Scindia chatrīs in Gwalior and Shivpuri is a monumental enclosed structure with internal layouts that mirror 2 The Scindias’ ancestors were agriculturalists, while the Holkars’ were shepherds. John Malcolm, A Memoir of Central India, first printed in 1832 (New Delhi: Aryan, reprint 2001), 116, 142. To legitimize their new positions of power, Maratha kings commissioned priests whose hereditary work was genealogical record keeping, to rewrite their dynastic histories and give them (invented) Kshatriya lineages (Gordon, The Marathas, 14–17). 3 For more on how the Marathas upheld the Rajputs as paradigms of martial Hindu rulership and emulated that model, see Prachi Deshpande, Creative Pasts: Historical Memory and Identity in Western India, 1700–1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 48–70. 4 George Michell and Mark Zebrowski, “Temples,” in Architecture and Art of the Deccan Sultanates, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 246–68.

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figure 7.1 Chatrī of Mahārājā Jayajirao Scindia, Gwalior, commissioned by Mahārājā Madho Rao Scindia, late-nineteenth century

a temple (see Fig. 7.1). The rectangularly planned maṇḍapas are flat roofed, apart from diminutive domes, with one or more domed balconies. Often, as in the case of the chatrī of Mahārājā Jayajirao Scindia, in Gwalior, dating to the late-nineteenth century, the maṇḍapas are cruciform in plan (Fig. 7.1). The heavy masonry walls of the maṇḍapas and vimānas are largely devoid of carvings, with the exception of blind foliated niches, projecting horizontal bands, and low reliefs of architectural elements. The garbha gṛha is surmounted by a śekharī-style śikhara. Several of the formal and decorative elements of the Scindia and other Maratha chatrīs bear close resemblance to Maratha temples built during the mid-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth centuries in the Deccan. These structures would have been potent sites of memory that evoked a Maratha golden age for later generations of Maratha kings. As George Michell, Mark Zebrowski, and Ashutosh Sohoni argue, the vigorous construction of monumental temples throughout the Deccan under Maratha rule was more than an expression of piety. It was also the community’s territorial claim to the region and an assertive reintroduction of Hindu faith and rule after three centuries of Islamic rule under the sultanates and

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figure 7.2 Marble sculptures of Daulat Rao Scindia and his wife in his chatrī. Early-nineteenth century.

Mughals. Maratha sacred architecture is characterized by a remarkable variety of forms and decoration that were appropriated from various pan-Indian sources: pre-sultanate Deccani Yadav, sultanate, Mughal, and Rajput, suggesting that they were heirs to these earlier powers.5

5 Michell and Zebrowski, “Temples.” Ashutosh Sohoni, “Temple Architecture of the Marathas in Maharashtra,” PhD diss., De Montfort University, 1998.

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Perhaps the most distinguishing features of the Scindia and Holkar chatrīs are the installations in their garbha gṛhas (Fig. 7.2). As has been discussed, many Rajput chatrīs shelter steles bearing icons in relief that signify the memorialized king and his satīs. In contrast, Scindia and Holkar kings are commemorated in their cenotaphs through nearly life-sized marble portrait sculptures in the round that tower above Shiva liṅgas. Funerary sculptures of kings from these two dynasties are accompanied by those of their wives. Although Maratha women did not historically become satīs, their presence along with their husbands alludes to the practice, thereby furthering Rajput associations. Since the chatrīs’ inaugurations, hereditary priests have performed twicedaily programs of worship both to the memorial sculptures and the liṅgas. The sculptures of the kings and queens, which are referred to as mūrtis (sacred images), are dressed daily, lustrated, and offered bhog (food offered to a deity), which is then served as prasād. At the Scindia chatrīs in Gwalior and Shivpuri, the royal family sponsors nightly classical Indian musical performances, which are played before the mūrtis (Fig. 7.3). The internal organization of the Scindia and Holkar garbha gṛhas within their chatrīs, with the alignment of the king and liṅga, has correlates with the Sisodia cenotaphs in Udaipur. This is unsurprising, considering that Mewar had been a Maratha vassal state. The Marathas spent time in Udaipur and it is likely that they saw or at least were aware of the Sisodia chatrīs. The Sisodia chatrīs cast the late mahārāṇās as dīvāns, in eternal attendance to their kul deva. The installations in the Scindia and Holkar chatrīs surpass the Sisodias’; the former’s diminutive liṅgas, coupled with the fact that the king is the visual and ritualistic focus, suggests his divinity and superiority over the Rajputs.6 With their conspicuous display of features from Maratha temples built in their ancestral homeland during the Maratha golden age, features which were themselves culled from the architectural traditions of several royal Indian communities, in addition to those of the conquered Rajputs, the Maratha chatrīs are intertextual and reference multiple intersecting lieux de mémoire. The diverse influences that left their imprint on the Maratha chatrīs signal the community’s military might, territorial expansion, and assertion of worth to fill the power vacuum in north India.

6 For more on the Maratha chatrīs, specifically in relation to how they served their patrons’ attempts to emulate and surpass the Rajputs, see Melia Belli, “Appropriation and the Articulation of Legitimacy in Scindia Funerary Art in Gwalior,” Archives of Asian Art 61 (2011): 91–106.

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figure 7.3 Priest performing evening worship in Madho Rao Scindia’s chatrī, Shivpuri



Claiming Sikh Space in Lahore: Mahārājā Ranjit Singh’s Samādhi

Over a century after the rise of Maratha power, Mahārājā Ranjit Singh (r. 1799– 1839) founded the short-lived Sikh Empire (1799–1849), with its capital at Lahore. As the two most viable contenders for control of north India in the late-eighteenth century, the Marathas and Sikhs fought frequently. They also encountered each other in Mughal and, later, British darbārs. Through these occasions, the two communities likely became aware of each other’s courtly

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figure 7.4 Samādhi of Mahārājā Ranjit Singh, Lahore. Begun under Kharak Singh in 1839 and completed in 1848, during the regency of Dalip Singh. Photograph courtesy of Adnan Naseemullah.

practices, including their memorial commissions. Although of different religions and from different regions, these two groups had much in common in terms of their designs for territorial expansion and the means by which they visually announced their political legitimacy. Like the Marathas, Sikh rulers communicated their imperial aspirations through construction of monumental memorials that conveyed their communal and religious identities (Fig. 7.4). Additionally, Ranjit Singh’s cenotaph, known locally as his samādhi, communicates his and his immediate successors’ complex emulation of, and animosity toward, the Mughals.7 The Sikh Empire was ruled by ethnic Punjabi followers of the Sikh religion who were a minority within their empire. Like Maratha dynasties such as the Scindias of Gwalior, Ranjit Singh’s ruled over a capital that possessed multiple layers of history—most recently it had been a Mughal capital. Visible reminders of the Mughal past, particularly the Shahi Qila (commonly known as the Lahore Fort) and the adjacent Badshahi Masjid, built under Aurangzeb, were and remain the most prominent landmarks in Lahore’s old city. Sikh history with the Mughals extended further back in time and had been far more tumultuous than that of the Marathas. Two Sikh gurus were martyred 7 As discussed in chapter 3, the term samādhi is more frequently used for a cenotaph of a Hindu or Jain holy person.

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by direct order of a Mughal emperor: Arjun Dev, the fifth guru, in 1605, under Jahangir; and Tegh Bahadur, the ninth guru, in 1675, under Aurangzeb. Mughal emperors imprisoned and executed other gurus and their sons during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the two communities engaged in numerous battles.8 Despite the long history of violent Sikh-Mughal relations, in the eighteenth century the Mughals offered, along with the Rajputs, the best established and most widely legible model of north Indian kingship. Mughal Lahore furnished its newest master with a ready cache of symbols, titles, and painting and literary styles, which Ranjit Singh appropriated to cast himself as the Mughals’ cultural and political successor. As A.S. Melikian-Chirvani observes: The image that the first sovereign of the Sikh State took care to project of himself was that of the heir to Mughal kingship. Artists repeatedly portrayed him in the guise of a Mughal ruler.9 Ranjit Singh is presented in his portraits, like the Mughal and Rajput kings before him, alone, presiding over darbārs, or mounted on a caparisoned horse. He is typically located under a magnificent umbrella, his head encircled by a luminous halo. The Sikh emperor was also an ardent collector of Mughal art and ceremonial paraphernalia, including illustrated manuscripts, weapons, vessels, costumes, and jewels.10 Additionally, numerous Mughal aristocrats and royals, including Jahangir and his empress, Nur Jahan, are buried in grand tombs in Lahore. The location and scale of Ranjit Singh’s samādhi overshadows the imperial Mughal tombs, as if a direct rejoinder to the Mughal past. Ranjit Singh’s artistic commissions, collections, and his samādhi work in con-

8 9 10

Kushwant Singh, “The Sikhs of the Punjab,” in The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms, ed. Susan Stronge (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1999), 15. A.S. Melikian-Chirvani, “Ranjit Singh and the Image of the Past,” in The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms, 63. Ibid. Like Shah Jahan, Ranjit Singh was a connoisseur of gems and possessed several exquisite examples that had been in the Mughal treasury. The pinnacle of Ranjit Singh’s collection was Kuh-i Nur diamond, which he procured in 1813 from the Afghan ruler Shah Shujah. One of the largest known diamonds, the Kuh-i Nur is fabled to have been owned by various Rajput, sultanate, and Mughal rulers and famously occupied pride of place on Shah Jahan’s “Peacock Throne.” It first left India in 1739, when Nadir Shah ransacked Delhi, looted the imperial treasury (including the diamond), and returned to Iran with its contents. Susan Stronge, “The Arts of the Court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh,” in The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms, 84–86.

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cert to convey not only that his empire was heir to the Mughals’ glory but that the Sikhs had eclipsed their old adversaries. Just as the Marathas commissioned large-scale temples to announce their piety and divinely ordained territorial claim to the Deccan, Ranjit Singh commissioned and restored gurdwārā (Sikh hall of worship) and pilgrimage sites throughout the Punjab, the Sikh spiritual heartland. His best known commission is the renovation of the most sacred Sikh site, the Harmandir Sahib (popularly known as the Golden Temple) in Amritsar. The extensive gilding, addition of Mughal architectural features, and delicate parchin kari (polished-stone inlay) work were added under Ranjit Singh’s aegis.11 Ranjit Singh ensconced himself in the Lahore Fort, the former Mughal seat of power. Rather than simply inhabiting Mughal space, he also altered it, impressing an indelible layer of Sikh history onto the built Mughal past. His construction of the Baradari, a relatively small marble pavilion in which he held public audiences, transformed the heart of the old city’s Mughal center. The pavilion is situated in the center of the Hazuri Bagh, the garden forecourt of Aurangzeb’s Badshahi Masjid, between the mosque and the fort’s main entrance. With its white-marble building material, foliated arches, and inlaid mirrors in the interior, the Baradari’s form and decoration are rooted in Mughal audience halls. Moreover, the pavilion’s construction material, along with that of several other Sikh structures in Lahore and Amritsar, is thought to be spolia from the city’s Mughal buildings.12 However, Ranjit Singh’s samādhi is by far the most distinct Sikh addition to Lahore’s history and built environment. The cenotaph’s form, location, and frescoes irrefutably establish Sikh imperial space. Appraising Ranjit Singh’s collections of Mughal artifacts, Melikian-Chirvani rhetorically asks: Was it the bittersweet satisfaction of possessing the regalia of the emperors that had been ruthless to the community? Or did Ranjit Singh give precedence to restoring the grandeur of the past?13

11

12

13

More widely known as pietra dura, parchin kari, as it is referred to in South Asia, is a deco­ rative technique in which semiprecious stones are inlaid in the surface of marble. The technique is best represented in Mughal monuments such as the Taj Mahal. Saleema Waraich, “Locations of Longing: The Ruins of Old Lahore,” Third Text 25, no. 6 (2011): 704. William Glover, Making Lahore Modern: Constructing and Imagining a Colonial City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007), 11–17. Melikian-Chirvani, “Ranjit Singh and the Image,” 65.

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The same could be asked of Ranjit Singh’s artistic commissions and his sa­ mādhi. The Sikh Empire outlived its founder by less than a decade, and within that brief span of time, three of Ranjit Singh’s sons and one grandson succeeded him. In light of the political instability in north India, and the fact that he had inherited a very young empire that quickly became volatile in the wake of his father’s death, it is unsurprising that the first successor, Kharak Singh (r. 1839– 40), commissioned the samādhi immediately after taking power. It was completed in 1848, during the regency of Ranjit Singh’s youngest son, Dalip Singh (r. 1843–49), under the guidance of the British, who had recently annexed the Punjab. Nadhra Shahbaz Naeem Khan interprets the British completion of the memorial as an effort “to promote goodwill among the inhabitants of Lahore and surrounding areas.”14 As the latest power to claim Lahore, the British undoubtedly sought to garner popular approval and support. However, their patronage of Ranjit Singh’s cenotaph was also likely a politically informed symbolic gesture. As discussed in chapter 4, the British extensively restored and altered numerous Mughal buildings, both to associate themselves with, and convey their usurpation of, India’s immediate imperial past. The British addressed the specter of Lahore’s two highly visible layers of recent imperial history through their building activity in the Lahore Fort and completion of the samādhi.15 The samādhi transformed the skyline of Lahore’s Mughal core and visually competes with the adjacent mosque and fort (Fig. 7.5). Its soaring dome is visible from the fort’s ramparts and looms above the walls of the mosque’s court. In addition to its proximity to the Mughal monuments and the political messages this conveys, the location of the memorial already possessed a Sikh sacred meaning prior to Ranjit Singh’s death. It stands on the site where Guru Arjun Dev had been tortured and executed under Jahangir’s command. Ranjit Singh built an architectural shrine marking the place of guru’s martyrdom, which was incorporated in the walled samādhi complex. Situated on a base of nearly fifteen feet, the samādhi is a monumental, square-planned, double-storied structure with pronounced Mughal architectural features. The central segmented dome rises from a drum encircled by reliefs of lotus petals. Decorative pavilions with bangaldar roofs and chatrīs 14 15

Nadhra Shahbaz Naeem Khan “Frescoes at Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Samādhi,” Marg 61, no. 4 (June 2010): 72. For more on British restoration and construction in Lahore in general, see Glover, Making Lahore Modern. For a more focused examination of colonial interaction with the fort, see Saleema Bashir Waraich, “The Ramifications of Ramparts: The Mughal Forts of Lahore, Pakistan, and Delhi, India,” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2007.

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figure 7.5 Samādhi of Ranjit Singh in Lahore’s Mughal core by the Mughal Fort and Badshahi Mosque. Photographer: John Edward Saché, 1870. Collection of the British Library

punctuate the roof. The exterior offers blind foliated arches and jharokha windows. Although now obscured under whitewash and paint, the building’s construction material of red sandstone augmented with panels of white marble would have furthered Mughal associations. Just as the Scindia and Holkar chatrīs mirror the form, layout, and ritual practices of Hindu temples, the form and internal organization of Ranjit Singh’s samādhi is based on a gurdwārā (Fig. 7.6).16 The first level of the samādhi’s interior is dominated by a white-marble pavilion with cusped arches supported by pairs of Mughal-style pillars that rise from bases with foliated designs. In the center of the pavilion is a white-marble chatrī resting on a platform. This structure originally enshrined ceramic vessels containing the mahārājā’s cremated ashes, along with those of four of his wives and seven serving women. As with the Marathas, there was no historical tradition of satī among Sikhs. That Ranjit Singh was joined at his pyre by eleven women (some of whom were Rajput) suggests that the practice was appropriated from the Rajputs, probably as an expression of kingly authority and prestige, despite the

16

The samādhi’s Mughal elements are polysemic, referring both to Mughal architecture and gurdwārās, which typically display pronounced Mughal architectural influence. This is probably to visually associate later gurdwārās with the Harmandir Sahib and create a uniform style of Sikh sacred architecture.

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figure 7.6 White marble pavilion in Ranjit Singh’s samadhī, which enshrined vessels containing the mahārājā’s cremated ashes and those of his satīs

fact that by 1839 satī was largely no longer practiced in the Rajput courts.17 The central chatrī formally evokes a manji sahib (a stand for the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy scripture). For several decades after Ranjit Singh’s death, the cenotaph functioned as a gurdwārā: daily prayers were conducted, a granthi (ceremonial reader) read the Guru Granth Sahib aloud, and there was a daily kirtan (devotional hymn) program at the site.18 The samādhi’s interior walls are covered in frescoes (published in Khan, 2010). Khan has examined their style (a mixture of Pahari, European, and late Mughal) and content (sacred Hindu and Sikh, as well as secular themes). The cycle on the first floor offers portraits of Ranjit Singh presented, as in his paintings, in a photo-realistic manner, in darbār, and surrounded by the trappings of Mughal kingship. He is attended by his minister; his son and successor, Kharak Singh; and his grandson, Nau Nihal Singh. The ten Sikh gurus are also depicted in the first-floor cycle. Kharak Singh and Sikhism’s founder, Guru Nanak, are

17 18

The vessels containing the ashes are now housed in a storage chamber at the site. Khan, “Frescos at Maharaja,” 84.

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dressed in nearly identical green jackets with gold paisleys, conceptually linking the two figures.19 The new mahārājā’s reputation could certainly have benefitted from such symbolism. History remembers Kharak Singh as both physically and mentally weak and, even in his father’s estimation, inept and unfit to rule. Soon after taking office, his court was divided by intrigue and exploited by corrupt ministers. Nau Nihal Singh openly challenged his father and ruled in all but name.20 In building his father’s samādhi, Kharak Singh made his descent from a highly successful emperor a permanent feature in his capital city. Visually aligning himself with Guru Nanak, Sikhism’s most distinguished historical figure, lent further credence to his claim that his rule was not only legitimate but divinely ordained. Ranjit Singh’s samādhi offers a final example of a king who came to power amidst controversy and commissioned a monumental memorial to aggrandize his father and extend that illustrious lineage to himself. Like numerous Rajput kings (including Ishwari Singh and Man Singh II of Jaipur, and Udai Singh and Abhai Singh of Marwar) Kharak Singh commissioned a memorial for his father that references a communal site of memory: in this case, a gurdwārā. The samādhi’s location, formal and decorative programs, and original dual function as a gurdwārā combine to proclaim Kharak Singh’s commitment to his father’s legacy: the creation of a Sikh empire and vindication of his community’s persecution under the Mughals. Kharak Singh ruled for slightly over a year and was succeeded by Nau Nihal Singh, who ruled for only twenty-four hours before dying under suspicious circumstances. Ranjit Singh’s first two successors are memorialized through diminutive, undecorated samādhis located in the court of Ranjit Singh’s samādhi. The presence of these memorials indicates the desire of their patron (whose identity is unknown) to create a dynastic necropolis that would chart Sikh imperial lineage from its esteemed founder to himself. Concomitantly, their modest size and appearance befits Kharak Singh’s and Nau Nihal Singh’s lasting reputation and indicates that their patron, whoever he was, sought to downplay their role in his dynastic history. Throughout this study I have argued that Rajput kings consistently responded to challenges to their power by memorializing their fathers through chatrīs with a larger scale, new and meaningful formal and decorative programs, and costly building materials. Various Maratha rulers and Kharak Singh clearly learned well from the Rajputs and the Mughals, appropriating and then 19 20

Ibid. Khan has also written about the restoration of the samādhi’s frescoes: “Frescoes Unveiled: Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Samadhi in Lahore,” Marg 59, no. 4 (June 2008): 54–59. Patwant Singh and Jyoti M. Rai, Empire of the Sikhs (London: Peter Owen, 2008), 210–12.

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amplifying their artistic styles and performances of political legitimacy. With the Mughal decline and the rise of British power, as well as the nearly constant skirmishes between various politically ambitious communities, architectural styles, lineage, and public identity all became more critical in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century north India. It was thus imperative that Maratha and Sikh rulers, whose empires were new and had only recently established their capital cities, unequivocally assert their control of those spaces through the territorial act of building dynastic funerary memorials that announced their identities, histories, and claims to power. By this time, to not build chatrīs would have been interpreted as a proclamation of a dynasty’s lack of worthiness to rule and would have been disrespectful to the deceased.

The Living Chatrī Tradition

The chatrī’s meanings were and remain intelligible beyond India (Fig. 7.7). When fifty-three Rajput and Sikh soldiers serving in the British army died while undergoing treatment in Brighton during World War I, the British ­government arranged for their cremation in nearby Patcham. In 1915 various branches of the national and local government commissioned a stately marble chatrī at the site. Measuring nearly twenty feet in height, the Patcham chatrī (often referred to as the Brighton chattri) stands sentinel on the South Downs of Sussex, overlooking the English Channel. The project was initiated by Sir John Otter, the mayor of Brighton; designed by E.C. Henriques; and Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob was consulted regarding the design.21 The structure is devoid of decoration, apart from an inscription in English, Punjabi, Urdu, and Hindi on the plinth: To the memory of all Indian soldiers who gave their lives for the KingEmperor in the Great War, this monument, erected on the site of the funeral pyre where Hindus and Sikhs who died in hospital at Brighton passed through the fire, is in grateful admiration and brotherly love dedicated. Members of the Raj, such as Jacob, who had studied and catalogued numerous Indian monuments and spent much time in Rajasthan, understood how the practice of building permanent architectural memorials and their umbrellalike forms were signifiers of north Indian royal, martial identity, and extra21

Peter Bridgewater, An Eccentric Tour of Sussex (Alfriston: Snake River Press, 2007), 75.

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figure 7.7 Chatrī marking the cremation and memory of Rajput and Sikh soldiers who fought in the British army in World War I, South Downs, Sussex, England. Begun under Sir John Otter, early-twentieth century

ordinariness. After all, Jacob dedicated an entire volume of the Jeypore Port­folio to chatrīs. The Patcham chatrī appropriately honors fallen Rajput and Sikh heroes, as it would in their far away homelands. The memorial is also a site of communal belonging for local Hindus and Sikhs. Since 2000 a Sikh community leader has organized annual memorial pilgrimages to the chatrī. Although built by the colonial power, the Patcham chatrī is a permanent reminder of the sacrifices Indian soldiers made for the country their ancestors now call home and their place in British history. Megha Rajguru, a visual artist and senior lecturer at the University of Brighton appreciates the chatrī’s role as a site of memory and its significance

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to national, ethnic, and local pasts. In 2003 Rajguru planned an interactive, multi-media project that located the memorial as a nexus between the South Asian community in Sussex, their ancestral homeland, and the colonial past. Although never executed, Rajguru’s project reimagined the soldiers’ last journey—coming to Brighton and finally being brought to the South Downs for their cremation. Rajguru intended the audience to walk along the route of the śav yatrā while wearing headphones that conveyed local pastoral sounds spliced with archival recordings of WWI bombings, rifles, and air raids. At their destination, the audience would be greeted by images of the soldiers in in the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, where they were hospitalized, the memorial itself, and the surrounding South Downs, which would be projected on the chatrī’s dome.22 The annual commemorative pilgrimage and Rajguru’s project envision the chatrī as a lieu de mémoire with which participants interact emotionally and physically, ensuring that it remains a vital feature of Sussex’s built environment, and not simply a silent memorial that may otherwise be forgotten in the fields and pastures of rural Patcham. In India, particularly Rajasthan, where the chatrī tradition originated, certain memorials remain equally dynamic sites of communal memory, belonging, and pride. Despite the fact that the Indian political landscape was redefined with independence in 1947, chatrīs retain many of their original meanings. The Indian royal families were officially divested of their titles and authority in 1949, when their kingdoms were subsumed into the new nation, and their remaining privileges and allowances were abolished in 1971. However, royal Rajput and Maratha families remain proud of their heritage and continue to command great respect within their erstwhile states. They also continue to build chatrīs in their dynastic chatrī baghs where they honor their ancestors. New brides are still brought to the chatrīs of their husband’s ancestors to take darśan and receive their blessings. Certain chatrīs, such as that of Prince Mota Singh and Princess Deep Kunwar, in Bikaner, remain active sites of worship, with an attendant priest who conducts daily rituals for the deified dead and their community of devotees. Chatrī construction remains a significant source of income for their hereditary builders, such as the Ustas, also of Bikaner. Perhaps most important, chatrīs retain their ability to make ancestry and royal lineage visible, conveying prestige and symbolic capital among the dynasties’ living descendants. 22

Personal correspondence with Megha Rajguru, June, 2015. See also Rajguru, “From Shrine to Plinth: Illuminating the Identity of the Hindu Deity in the Museum through Artistic Intervention,” Journal of Museum Ethnography 24 (2012): 110.

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Glossary Glossary

299

Glossary A abiśek ācaryā Agnivanshi ahiṃsā Alwar Amber/ Jaipur amalaka āmrit añjali mudrā antarala ardha maṇḍapa āyurveda: B bahi bangaldar Baniya[s] bapjī barāt bhakti bhomiya bhūmī pūjan Bikaner

C chābutrā chajjā chakdār jāmā Chandravanshi char bagh chatrī

liquid sacralized by bathing a divine image head of a Hindu order descended from the cosmic fire pit at Mt. Abu nonviolence Former Rajput kingdom ruled by the Naruka dynasty Former Rajput kingdom ruled by the Kachhwaha dynasty segmented disc surmounting a śikhara nectar hands held together in respect/greeting antechamber between the garbha gṛiha and the maṇḍapa temple porch South Asian medical system associated with Hinduism.

genealogical record curved eave merchant caste honorable father bridegroom’s wedding procession devotion a type of divine spirit who is a protector of the land foundation ritual for a temple or chatrī former Rajput kingdom ruled by the Bika Rathore dynasty, name of the capital city

low, whitewashed platform, often a Sufi saint’s grave or a marker of the site of a Hindu cremation eave a four-pointed upper garment popularized in the 16th c. Mughal court descended from the moon Persian-style quadripartite garden “umbrella”/ cenotaph marking the site of a cremation, decorative architectural kiosks

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004300569_010

300 chatrī bagh chatrpatī chaurī chauth chitra darśan

D Dadu Panth Dadu Panthis dagtithi dāh saṃskāra darbār darśan deval

devalī devī devtā dha bai dharm dharmik dharm patnī dīvān Dussehra dvarapālā

Glossary garden of chatrīs, a necropolis one who commands an umbrella, an epithet for an ideal king ceremonial whisk of white horse or yak hair tax of one quarter of the annual state revenue Maratha governments levied on their tribute sates “picture seeing,” reciprocal gaze between devotee and the divine in the form of an image

Hindu religious order founded by Dadu Dayal (1544–1603 followers of the teachings of Dadu Dayal death anniversary Hindu ritual of last rites, cremation court viewing “temple,” in the Mandore chatrī bagh, outside of Jodhpur, the term refers to cenotaphs that take the form, decoration, and certain functions of temples stele in chatrī goddess god child of a wet nurse; i.e., a foster sibling religious and socially sanctioned duty; it also refers to religion. adj. quality of following dharm “true” wife prime minister Hindu annual festival “door guardian” often refers to apotropaic sculptures at entrances to sacred sites

E Eklingji

a form of Śiva, the Sisodia dynastic deity

G gaddī gaṇgā jal, garbha gṛha ghaṇṭamālā

a wooden throne; Rajput throne water from the Ganges river inner sanctum of a temple chain of bells, commonly carved on clummns in temples

301

Glossary ghāṭ gopī gōtrā

steps leading into a body of water female cow herder Hindu lineage group based on descent from a particular guru govardhān stele Gurjara Pratihara Empire also known as the Pratihara Empire, an imperial dynasty that ruled much of north India from the mid-seventh to the eleventh century. guru spiritual teacher H havelī I Indra iṣṭdevā īwan

J jagīr jagīrdār jālī Jama Masjid jamma jāti jauhar jharokha jhunjhar K kailaś Kailashvas Kailashvasi kalaśa kapāl kriyā

mansion with a central courtyard

Sky God patron deity arched entrance often associated with Central and South Asian Islamic architecture

estate of land a landed nobleman, hereditary head of a jagīr “net,” carved stone screen Friday Mosque, typically a community’s largest mosque, where the Friday noontime prayer is given long shirt subcaste mass self-immolation performed by women as the Rajput men of their community face un-winnable battle balcony window martial folk god who fights after his decapitation

finial in the form of a water pot that crowns a temple or chatrī dome Shiva’s heaven deceased residents of Shiva’s heaven “water pot” shaped finial above the amalaka; a feature on temples and chatrīs skull-breaking rite, part of the dāh saṃskāra; in many

302

Glossary

kaṭāri kesriyā khabarnāvīs khilat kirtan kīrtimukha Kirti Stambha Kshatriya[s] kul devā kul devī kūmkūm kunvar

Hindu traditions, the last responsibility an eldest son owes his parents a push-dagger with an H-shaped horizontal hand grip saffron color palace recorder robes of honor devotional hymn glorious face; apotropaic face often carved on temples Victory Tower Hindu caste of hereditary warriors and rulers dynastic god dynastic goddess vermilion paste prince

L lāj or ‘izzat lāljī Latina liṅg liṅga pūjā lōk devtā

modesty son of Rajput ruler and non-Rajput śikhara style with smooth, curvilinear outline phallus form of Śiva worship of Śiva as a liṅg folk god

M mahant mahout mahārājā mahārāṇā mahārāṇī mahārao mahāsiddha makara manat maṇḍapa manṣab manṣabdār mantrā Manusmriti Maraṭha[s]

head of a Hindu religious order elephant driver king king, (here) of the Sisodia dynasty of Mewar queen king divine adept in the Nath religious order fabulous crocodilian beast whose upper body often decorates praṇālas contractual agreement, (here) between devotee and the divine pillared hall, the largest and first chamber of a temple command commander magical formula/ prayer Law Code of Manu

303

Glossary Maratha Confederacy Maratha Empire mardānā Marudesha Marwar Marwari maṭ meghḍambar chatrī Mewar Mewari mokṣ mūrti N nāgā

1630–1818 1674–1818 male-dominated public area of palace or home later Marwar former Rajput kingdom ruled by the Jodha Rathore dynasty language; also used as adj. form of Marwar monastery celestial umbrella of Indra former Rajput kingdom ruled by the Sisodia dynasty language; also adj. liberation, annihilation of the soul sacred image

nauratanā nim qalam

different communities of sadhus who are nearly naked and often martial or pūrvaj Mewari square-planned stele inside of Sisodia chatrīs “nine jewels” ;(here) cluster of nine domes “gold pen,” a wash technique

O oṛnī

veil

namūnā

P padmaśilā pādukā pāliyā pallipadai pāñcāmṛta

pāñch pannā pāñchrāngā pāñchratanā paradh pietra dura

carved pendant ceiling with a central ornament in the form of a lotus bud (typically) wooden sandals worn largely by renunciants marble slab with footprints, in a chatrī Tamil: “a memorial sepulchral, or tomb, temple” “five nectar”; mixture of five substances, usually: honey, sugar, milk, clarified butter, and yogurt used for lustrating sacred images Shardul Singh Shekhawat’s division of his estate into five equal parts among his five sons (“five colors”) flag cluster of five domes staying within the zenānā or veiled while outside the home parchin kari; polished-stone inlay

304 paṭ rāṇī patka payal phāṁsanā pitr or pitru pitranī praṇāla pranām pradakṣiṇā patha prasād pūjā pūjā / prān pratiṣṭā pūjārī Public Works  (PWD)

R rāgamālā

Todi Ragini rājā rājābiṣek rājādharma rājas rāj kūmār rāj mahant / rāj guru rājmātā rāj purōhit Rajputana

rāj tīlak

Glossary senior wife a sash belled anklet tiered roof style, usually over a maṇḍapa ancestor female ancestor (ablution channel) leading from a temple’s garbha gṛha to the exterior. respects circumambulatory walkway around the exterior of the garbha gṛha food that is sacralized by being offered to a deity and then consumed by devotees ceremony of worship inauguration ceremony temple priest Department ministry responsible for construction and maintenance of public buildings and amenities, as well as many private ones. Begun in different parts of India under the British colonial government

“garland of musical modes” and paintings depicting them, intended to provoke specific aesthetic and devotional responses in the audience a song whose iconography is a woman playing a veena, accompanied by deer king affusion ceremony at the king’s inauguration the socio-religious duties of a Hindu king heat, irascibility, āruvedic principle heir apparent spiritual advisor to a king dowager queen and mother of the present king royal priest British colonial term for much of the region now comprising the Indian states of Rajasthan and Gujarat, and parts of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh as well as parts of southeastern Pakistan anointment ceremony of new king

305

Glossary rājvī rao rājā rās līlā

younger brother of a king and other high-ranking aristocrat who is related to the ruling family king Krishna’s circular dance with milkmaids

S sabhāmandāraka sādhu sagasjī

type of dome ascetic divine murdered martyr

śaka samādhi

sarpech sat satī satī mā satī vrat sātmarī śav yatrā śekharī Shaivism Shaivite śikhara siṃhāsan sindūr śiśa śmaśān sōlah śringār śrāddh sutradār sughēn ṣulh-i kul

martyrdom of riding out of a fort to defend it in the face of certain death a state of transcendent knowledge and bliss. A saint is said to “take samādhi” i.e. attain mokṣ and no longer reincarnate at death. Also a funerary memorial, typically for saint. plumed turban ornament goodness woman who self-immolates on her husband’s pyre divine satī vow to become a satī elephant-goading game funerary cortege a style of Nagari north Indian) temple towers defined by pronounced uraḥśṛṅgas following of the Hindu deity Shiva n. and adj. spire in Nagara (north Indian) temples “lion throne” vermilion-based powder student cremation ground “sixteen ornaments,” adornments of a married Hindu woman sixteen-day period in the Hindu calendar designated for the remembrance of ancestors stonemason married woman universal toleration of all faiths promoted by Mughal Emperor Akbar

306

Glossary

śūd Sūryavamśā Suryavanshi

ritually pure solar dynasty descended from the sun

T Ṭākur: tazīmī sardār thān thapna thaṛa ṭhikānā tilak

landed aristocrat the highest ranking noblemen in Jaipur State ceremony to call in a spirit Rathore cenotaph type estate Hindu sectarian mark on the forehead

U uraḥśṛṅga

ornamental tower that rings the main tower in śekharī style temple towers

V Vaikuntha Vaikuṇṭhvasi Vaishnava[s] Vaishnavite vaṃśāvlī varṇ

Vishnu’s heaven residents of Vishnu’s heaven follower[s] of Vishnu adj. genealogy caste

vijay stambha vimāna vīnā vīr vīrgitī V.S.

victory column section in a temple including the garbha gṛha and tower four-stringed instrument typically martial) hero heaven for heroes Vikram Samvat, Hindu dating system

Y Yogi, yogīnī

an adherent of Yoga philosophy

Z zahir zenānā

poison women’s quarters in a palace or home)

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Index Index

317

Index Albert Hall, Jaipur 71–72, 78, 209, 240, 245 Alcohol 43–44, 54, 56–57, 87, 114, 128–131, 163, 167 Alwar 5, 30. 33, 85, 93–97, 100, 100–101, 103–106, 108, 110–111, 113–117, 120, 220, 236 Amber 5, 15, 30, 33–34, 38–41, 43–45, 47, 52, 54, 57, 64, 77–78, 83, 91, 93, 95, 99, 103, 116, 122–123, 138, 151–152, 154, 167, 184, 215–216, 249, 252, 256 Bhomiya 20, 65, 66 Bikaner 5, 11, 19, 21–22, 28–29, 31, 37, 90, 121, 126, 139, 143, 157, 161, 184, 208, 212–219, 221–222, 226–229, 231, 238, 240–241, 243–244, 246, 249, 252, 268–269, 275–276, 279, 297 Bika Rathore Rajput 23–24, 31, 131, 139, 137, 212–213, 217–218, 223, 226, 228–230, 234–238, 246–247, 269, 276, 279 Rao Bika (1465–1504) 139, 212, 215, 219, 222, 242, 245 Satī Mā Deep Kunwar (d. 1825) 31, 213, 228–235, 246, 256, 276, 297 Mahārājā Ganga Singh (1888–1943) 29, 208, 213–215, 217, 219, 221, 224, 227, 238, 240–246, 279 Rao Kalyanmal (1541–71) 215, 224–225, 249 Rāj Kūmār Mota Singh (d. 1825) 213, 246, 231, 228–229, 232, 236, 246, 276, 297 Rājā Rai Singh (1571–1611) 215–216, 218, 224, 243 Mahārājā Surat Singh (1788–1828) 213, 215, 228, 228–230, 232–237, 246 Chittorgarh 61, 148, 179, 181, 243, 249, 253, 256, 258–259, 261 British Raj 7, 30, 50, 174, 204, 242, 279 Devalī 3, 18, 27, 161–162, 213, 218, 220–222, 224–225, 227–228, 230, 232, 234–237, 239, 243, 246, 270 Devi Kund Sagar Necropolis 213, 224, 226–227, 232, 234, 246

Dharm 13, 19–20, 22, 43, 54, 56, 90, 122, 128, 131, 136, 151, 155–156, 163, 177, 179, 192, 213, 221, 223, 229, 238, 246, 250, 253, 267, 283 Eklingji 31, 178, 248, 250, 258–262, 267–272, 274, 276–277, 279–281 Gaitor Necropolis 26, 34, 52, 62, 64, 68–70, 72, 77–78, 82, 85–86, 88, 98, 107, 121, 210, 245 Ganesh 124–157–159, 232, 234 Gurdwārā 290, 292–294 Hero 17–20, 100 Hindu/ Hinduism 1–2, 8, 10–16, 13, 18–19, 21, 23–29, 26–27, 31–33, 38, 42–43, 46, 53–54, 56, 58, 74–75, 82, 87, 94, 100–101, 104, 107, 157, 234, 127–128, 132, 135, 137, 140–141, 145–146, 148–149, 154–155, 157–158, 162–165, 177, 179, 184, 190, 198–200, 205, 218, 221, 226, 230, 232, 234, 238, 245, 256, 261, 264, 279, 282–284, 292–293 Humayun’s Tomb 11, 39, 151–153 Hunting 54, 56, 68, 70, 72, 78, 85, 89, 107, 123, 128, 184 Invented Tradition 9, 248 Islam 13, 141, 175, 279 Jagat Shiromani Temple 281, 44–49, 51–52, 56–58, 78, 154, 256, 281 Jaipur 5, 7, 20, 25–26, 28, 30, 33–37, 41, 43, 49–53, 56, 61–65, 67, 69–76, 78, 80, 82, 84–89, 91, 93–99, 101, 103–104, 106, 109, 111, 114, 116–117, 119–123, 126–127, 134, 138, 159, 175–176, 195, 204–205209–215, 240, 245, 266, 272, 274, 276, 282, 294 Jagdish Temple 178, 256, 258, 272 Jaswant Thaṛa 119, 174, 202–204, 206, 212, 242–243, 245 Jodha Rathore Rajput 31, 136, 138–139, 147, 150–153, 156, 161–162, 165, 169–170,

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004300569_012

318 Jodha Rathore Rajput (cont.) 172–175, 177, 182, 186–187, 192, 195–197, 201–2, 210, 213, 218, 233, 258, 264 Mahārājā Abhai Singh (1724–49) 123, 176, 187, 191–193, 294 Mahārājā Ajit Singh (1707–24) 172–181, 184–187, 191, 192, 258, 272–273 Mahārājā Jaswant Singh I (1638–1678) 170, 172–175, 178, 181, 182–184, 201–202, 258, 272 Mahārājā Jaswant Singh II (1873–1895) 202–204, 207–208, 210 Rao Jodha (1427–1489) 138, 142, 212 Mahārājā Man Singh (1803–43) 166, 195–202, 204 Rao Maldev (1532–62) 137, 147, 149–152, 157, 159–160, 162, 171, 173, 238, 251, 264 Mahārājā Takht Singh (1843–1873) 166–195–196, 200–202, 204, 211 Rājā Udai Singh (1583–95) 37, 49, 137–138, 143, 147–157, 159–160, 167–169, 173, 177, 214, 238, 251, 264, 294 Jodhpur 13, 15–16, 23, 31, 44, 67, 119, 137–138, 142, 161–162, 166, 174–175, 177–178, 181, 196, 199, 202–203, 205, 215, 222, 252, 275 Junjhar 20 Kachhwaha Rajput 7, 11, 30, 33–37, 38–41, 43, 45, 49–52, 56, 59–61, 63–64, 67–68, 70–72, 77–79, 82–83, 87–88, 97–98, 103–104, 106, 115–117, 122–123, 134, 136, 143, 149–150, 168–176, 195, 209–210, 213, 226, 238, 240, 245, 250, 256, 262, 267, 272, 274 Mahārājā Sawai Ishwari Singh (1743–50) 20, 30, 34, 36, 49, 51–53, 56, 59–68, 70, 82, 87–88, 96, 98, 123, 149, 159–160, 181, 238, 294 Mahārārā Sawai Jagat Singh 70, 195 Mahārājā Sawai Jai Singh II (1688–1743) 30, 49–51, 53–54, 59–60, 70, 72–73, 150, 210, 238, Mahārārā Sawai Madho Singh I (1750–68) 20, 30, 34, 36, 51, 56, 61–68, 71, 95, 197 Mahārājā Madho Singh II (r. 1880–1922) 25–26, 28, 34, 36, 51, 70, 85, 89, 91–92 Rājā Man Singh I (1592–1614) 30, 34–3, 41, 45, 49, 52, 54, 56, 58, 78, 96, 99, 107, 114,

Index 117, 122–123, 151–152, 154, 176, 215–216, 224, 238, 245, 249 Mahārājā Man Singh II (r. 1922–69) 26, 30, 71, 75–76, 78–79, 82–88, 92, 109, 149 Mahārājā Sawai Pratap Singh (1778–1803) 37, 67–70 Karni Mata 245, 258 Lahore 39, 216, 265, 287–291 Lieu de Mémoire 6, 10, 94, 110, 136, 150, 153, 238, 248, 250, 279, 281 Maratha 3, 7–8, 31, 61, 86, 100–101, 108, 198, 228, 274, 282, 288, 294–295, 297 Holkar Dynasty 286, 292 Scindia Dynasty 1–2, 208, 283–286, 292 Mahārājā Madho Rao (1886 – 1925) 1–2, 24, 86, 208, 283–284, 287 Maha­-Maru style of architecture 145–148, 153–155, 157, 173–174, 178, 282 Mahasatiya necropolis 248–249, 262–263, 266, 270, 275–277 Maru-Gurjara style of architecture 46–47, 154, 174, 177–178, 187, 191–192, 205, 212, 258, 261, 273, 282 Mandore 16, 137, 139–146, 148, 153, 159–162, 165–166, 171–172, 177–178, 181, 187, 190–191, 194–196, 202, 233, 258 Marwar 5, 10, 13, 15–17, 30–31, 34, 37, 49–50, 61, 67, 119, 123, 136–139, 142 Meat-eating 43, 54, 72, 78, 93, 107 Memory 6, 13, 28, 31–2, 36, 45–46, 49, 61, 69, 78, 87, 92, 96, 114, 119, 142, 149, 152–153, 160, 173, 177, 187, 202, 206, 229, 243, 249–250, 258, 263–265, 266, 282, 284, 294–295 Mewar 5, 7, 10, 18, 20–21, 26–27, 29–32, 37, 47, 50–51, 61, 90–91, 138, 151, 154, 172–179, 181, 184, 192, 198, 204, 216, 228–229, 246, 248–250, 252–265, 267, 270, 272–276, 279, 282, 286 Mughal 11–12, 15, 18–19, 28, 31, 33, 36–38, 40–43, 46, 48–53, 63, 77, 83, 95, 98, 106, 110, 237, 138, 150–152, 154–157, 166–170, 172–177, 179, 181–184, 186, 19193, 202, 204–206, 209, 212, 215–220, 227–228, 244–245, 250–253, 256, 258, 263–267, 271–273, 278–279, 282, 285, 287, 289, 293, 295

Index



Emperor Akbar (1555–1605) 11–12, 19, 36–39, 53, 150–152, 15156, 167, 169, 173, 180, 215, 217, 249–250, 253, 264–265, 273, 289 Arangzeb (1658–1707) 50, 96, 10, 174–175, 182, 184, 192, 216, 272, 273, 288–289 Emperor Jahangir (1605–27) 12, 38–40, 150, 156, 167, 170, 173, 180, 215, 250, 253, 264–265, 273, 289 Emperor Shah Jahan (1628 -58) 50, 99, 170, 174, 251, 253, 256, 265–266, 272

Naruka Rajput 93–110, 113–117, 122, 137, 198, 213, 222, 226, 241, 262 Mahārājā Bakhtawar Singh (1791–1815) 94, 105, 108–109, 112 Rao Rājā Pratap Singh (1774–91, 95–99, 101–104, 107, 115, 122, 222 Mahārājā Vinay Singh (1815–57) 93–94, 96, 106–114 Nath religious order 174, 197–199, 212 Nostalgia 152, 155, 157, 167, 172–173, 279 Pāliyā 4, 67, 98, 108–110, 114, 117, 119, 159, 161–162, 226, 238 Pānch Pannā 121, 123 Pratihara 31–139–143, 146–150, 152–155, 157, 160, 173, 212 Satī 4, 7, 19, 24, 31, 90, 114, 131, 143, 161, 218, 221–224, 228, 229–230, 232, 234–238, 246, 253, 269–270, 276, 292–293 Satmari 43, 54, 72, 78, 93, 107 Shekawat Rajput 93, 122–123, 126, 137 Rao Shardul Singh (1681–1742) 121–126, 131, 136

319 Shekawati 30, 33, 93–95, 121–122, 126–128, 130–133, 137 Shiva 16, 19, 21, 45, 73, 132–133, 163, 190, 226, 258, 261, 270, 272, 286 Sikh religion and empire 31, 287–296 Mahārājā Ranjit Singh (1799–1839) 287–294 Sisodia Rajput 18, 23–24, 31, 37, 50–51, 172, 174–180, 184, 187, 198, 212, 228–229, 246–253, 256, 258–259, 261–270, 270–276, 279–280, 286 Mahārāṇā Amar Singh I (1597–1620) 26–27, 250, 263–264, 266–267, 269, 275–276 Mahārāṇā Amar Singh II (r. 1698–1710) 50, 176, 252, 273 Mahārāṇā Jagat Singh (1628–52) 26, 178, 253, 256–258, 266, 271–272 Mahārāṇā Jagat Singh II (1734–1751) 253, 274–275 Mahārāṇā Karan Singh (1620–28) 251, 263–267, 272–273, 279 Rāṇā Kumbha (1433–1468) 47, 154–155, 172, 177–179, 249–250, 258, 261, 273 Rāṇā Pratap Singh (1572–97) 179, 216, 249, 263–264, 276–277 Mahārāṇā Sangram Singh II (1710–34) 253, 272, 274–275 Udaipur 29, 178, 246, 248, 256, 259, 264, 272 Umbrella 8–9, 136–137, 144, 156, 164–165, 194, 199, 208, 215, 219, 222, 281, 289 Vishnu 21, 45–47, 145, 163, 226, 236, 238, 261 as Lakshminath 226, 236, 258, 269