BIRTH ANNIVERSARY
The revered land of India, replete with scores of legendry rulers cum administrators, sages, peers and the ilk have been instrumental in leaving behind a plethora of sublime instructions, guidelines, legacies and such like things which future generations still have not been able to fathom leave alone imbibe in their lifetimes. The term ‘commandments of life’ can refer to different things, depending upon the context. In a religious context, it often refers to the ‘Ten commandments’ which are fundamental rules of conduct in Judaism and Christianity.
In a more philosophical, general or personal level, it can be used to describe principles or guidelines for living a meaningful and fulfilling life. The present article of mine dwells upon the latter version of commandments of life’ which broadens the canvass of this write up of mine. It is this singular thought of mine which sublimates my views on the ‘Commandments of life’ of one of the best known ‘Warrior cum rulers’ of Indian sub-continent that has ever seen his spread across the grain of India—The Mewari Rana aka Maharana Pratap on his 485 (four hundred and eighty fifth) birth anniversary which happens to be today—09 May 2025.
Though as per the royal house of Mewar, Pratap’s birthday coincides with ‘Jesht Shukla tritya which falls in the last week of May this year. It is primarily due to calculation of his birth date as per the Vikram Samavat calendar, but all over India it is followed as per the English calendar that considers 09th May as the birth anniversary of the great warrior King. Considered as one of the bravest of all rulers of his times, it is his own lineage as well as his family’s lineage dating back to eighth century AD & waging a relentless war against foreign invaders that has catapulted him forever into the domain of Indian bravery like nobody else.
Though the world at large is all too familiar with the heroics of Mewari Rana, seldom do people know that his qualities of head and heart on the anvil of which he hammered his name and fame even in the annals of enemy’s mental firmament were ingrained right from his childhood partly due to the vicissitudes of life thrown at him and finally due to his own commitment and strength of his character.
The ‘commandments of life’ which guided throughout the rough and tumble of fate of Mewari Rana, actually cannot encapsulate the larger than life image of the great Rajput warrior king in its entirety. It goes to the legendary historians both Indian as well as of foreign origin to record the subtleties of these commandments of the legendary fighter and bring forth to the public at large as they occurred in real time and space. Shri ‘Shyamal Das Dadhwadiya’ and Col ‘James Tod’( famous British historian) to name a few, belong to that genre of rare historians who by their painstaking research work based on empirical data cum field work drawn from local resources have been able to sustain their reputation while casting many a new revelations on this legendary warrior from Mewar.
Be that as it may, this 485th anniversary year of the Maharana some of his legendary ‘commandments of life’ are worth recounting that have been recorded by these two above mentioned famed historians in their seminal work—‘Veer Vinod’ & ‘ Annals and antiquities of Rajasthan ’ dating back to late 18 th century respectively. The very birth of Mewari Rana ( Pratap) was enmeshed in a web of palace intrigues & family secrets, with his father Maharana Udai Singh ascending the throne of Mewar in 1540 CE and coinciding of his eldest son’s (Pratap) coming into this world.
The fact that Maharana Udai Singh in a moment of weakness yielded to the Bhatiyani queen (one of his favourite) and did not accommodate Pratap and his mother ‘Jaywanta Bai’ when the latter came to Udaipur from his birthplace Kumbhalgarh; but made them stay in ‘Kunwar pada’ a village at the foothills of Chittor set the stage for the first commandment of his life. The facet of ‘Self-understanding and personal growth’. Prince Pratap early on kick started his life from this weakness of his father making him understand that the circumstances of his birth were not normal and made him seek opportunities even in this deprivation.
The most humiliating way food was sent from the palace of Udaipur for both Pratap and his mother (queen Jaywanta Bai) every day to the village of their residence taught him the value of even a single morsel of food which he very heartily shared with his village folks of ‘Kunwarpada’ along with the guards of his house by sitting on ground, endearing himself to the masses and his army. This tradition of sitting on ground in a line and eating his meals with his army continued as long as Pratap lived. Something unheard of in the annals of Indian history raising his stature by many notches high even during the reign of his father, Maharana Udai Singh.
The all too important life’s commandment relating to ‘Kindness and compassion’ as well as that of ‘Authenticity’ cannot have a bigger and better epitome than the ‘Mewari Rana’who forged a lifelong bondage of love and brethren-ship with the tribal population of Udaipur and its surroundings i.e. the ‘Bhils’. What bigger and better display of solidarity of a lifelong value by the Mewarhouse, than the fact that the royal insignia of Mewar carries the twin short sculptures of a rajput warrior with his sword and shield standing alongside with that of a tribal Bhil adorned with his traditional bow and arrow flanking on either side of the shield of Mewar.
With prophetic words—‘One who bears Dharma steadfastly, is protected by the divine’ encapsulates the entire fabric of ethos around which Mewar had been etching its name in golden letters in the sub-continent’s mediaeval history and reaching right till the 18 th century. Though Mewar had always been inhabited by the mountain and jungle dwelling Bhil population, the royal house was more or less disconnected with these people despite the fact that Maharana Bappa Rawal’s life was initially saved by these Bhils.
While as the tradition of ‘Rajput-Bhil’ alliance dates back to 7 th century, the true bond of these two disparate communities was cemented by Pratap unprecedented in its scale and emotion. This influence it had on the future wars with the Mughals in the coming centuries dissolved all the boundaries between the rulers of Mewar and their subjects in an unalienable manner. The twin battles of Haldghati and that of Dewair after few years of the former having a solid footprint of Bhil presence is still the mainstay of folk lore of Rajasthan.
Pratap was instrumental in breaching centuries old hegemony of the rulers over their subjects in his lifetime. The all too important facet of ‘Authenticity’ of these Bhil populations to the survivability of Mewar citizenry during myriad battles with foreign invaders can be ascertained from the simple fact that whenever the Maharanas of Mewar enforced the ‘Scorched earth policy’ and directed its population to leave the plains and head for the mountains, it was these Bhils who would welcome these plains people and accommodate them in the hills of Aravali for years.
Though all commandments of the great warrior king cannot be compressed in an article of this nature, all the same the tenet of ‘living simply’ (greatest of all commandments) that entailed prioritizing experiences over possessions and focusing on what truly mattered came very early on to Pratap due to his childhood experiences at ‘Kunwarpada’. The same was reinforced owing to the myriad battles that came his way while taking on the imperialist armies of Mughals and elsewhere. Both of these events fated in his life time a fetish for living simply i.e. following the theory of ‘Minimalistic living’ which is now being discovered by the modern generation and emulating it hook, line & sinker. But the sterling example of ‘Living simply’ bordering on ‘self-punishment’ on his becoming the ruler of Mewar are just beyond the reckoning of a normal ruler.
His commandments included shunning all articles of luxury and pomp, until Chittor was reclaimed. The said royal decree included shunning away of gold and silver dishes, replaced with ‘Pattals or plates and utensils made out of leaves. The beds of cloth and soft velvet were replaced with straw and leaves. The martial nagadas (drums) which used to lead royal processions were placed at the rear to mark and remember the fallen fortunes of Mewar and stimulate its recovery from the Mughals. The epitome of ‘living simply’ finds its final tribute when Rana and his family living in the wilderness of Aravali hills fighting a guerrilla war against Akbar goes on to lead such a Spartan life that had got attached the metaphor of ‘eating ghaski roti’ with his very being.
The tenet ‘appreciating the present’ finds its echoes in Rana’s quest of ‘being mindful of the present moment and cherishing the experiences you have’. The very fact that he immediately on ascending the throne of Mewar realized the importance of reclaiming Chittor as its capital, made Kumbhal Garh as the interim capital to rally around his subjects and reverted to the ancient system of his ancestors to retreat to the mountains. Preparing himself for a protracted war with the Mughals, he directed the areas between Banas and Beris to be evacuated and left ‘be-chiraag’ i.e. without a lamp.
The policy of ‘scorched earth’ was put into motion to burden the Mughals with carrying everything on their backs as supplies of any kind and no slaughter of any citizens of his state. To quote Col James Tod : ‘By such patriotic severity , Pratap rendered the ‘garden of Rajasthan’ of no value to the conqueror, and the commerce established between the Mughal courts and Europe , conveyed through Mewar from Surat and other ports was intercepted and plundered’.
As mentioned above though this write up of mine would fall short of compressing all the facets of the great Rajput warrior king, irrespective of this term of reference it will be worth mentioning that due importance of his teachings be imparted to the younger generation drawn from revered writers of the ilk –Shri Shamayal das Dadhwadiya of ‘Veer Vinod’ fame and the British historian Col James Tod on this birth anniversary of Mewari Rana. I am quite sure if the above is followed in sincerity a great service would be done for the only warrior king who till date has no equal in the sub-continent’s history.
(Author is a retired army officer and a regular scribe of Rising Kashmir paper. He can be approached on his email: [email protected])
