250 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIII, 



there is the rule of the son of the Sun. 1 [Now] in the City of 

 the Men [there has been born] the son of Kalo, 2 a donor of 

 wealth. Ananta ! what shall be the sort of Poverty, to- 

 day ?" 



3. " The donor of earth 3 would not keep me in the 

 Patala, and the donor of gold 4 has closed [before me the doors 

 of] the Ifcailasa. [Now] on the face of the earth the donor of 

 elephants 5 [has also taken to] beat me. O Visnu ! in which of 

 the three worlds shall I [now J make my abode ? " 



4. After inspecting the [three] worlds of the Serpents, the 



Immortals, and the Men, Hari sayeth : — "[For thee] there is 



[still] one place [left]. [There are] the houses of the enemies 



brought down by [Raya] Singha. Go. Poverty, and make [thy] 

 abode there." 



The other song of Raya Singha, with which I am going to 

 close this small selection of commemorative songs of the early 

 rulers of Bikaner, celebrates, as has been already anticipated 

 above, Raya Singha's unparalleled liberality to the bards. In 

 those golden times of Rajput life, when swords were never allowed 

 to rust nor steeds to rest, and the bard was always wanted at 

 the side of the warrior as a witness of his deeds and a singer of 

 his praises, the lavishness of the Chiefs to the bards had known 

 no limits. Lakha-pasavas, or gifts equivalent to a lakha of 

 rupees, had become quite an ordinary thing, and krora-pasavas, 

 or gifts equivalent to a crore. were not unheard of. But a sava 

 krora-pasava, or a gift of 1J crore of rupees, and these in cash, 

 was given only by Raya Singha, who thus established a record 

 of liberality which, so far as we know, has never been surpassed 

 since. % The particulars of the fact are related by Dayaja Dasa 

 in the following manner. Sankara, a Baratha Carana. had 

 pleased Raya Singha with his verses, and Raya Singha ordered 

 his minister Karma Ganda to pav to the bard one crore of rupees 

 from his royal treasury, the minister had the 10 thousand 

 bags counted, but before giving them to the Carina, insisted that 

 Raya Singha himself should inspect them, hoping that at the 

 sight of such an enormous amount of money, the Raja might 

 repent of his lavishness and reduce the amount. Raya Singha 

 saw through his minister's mind, and inspected thebag s > and 

 then said : " Is this one crore ? Whv, I thought one crore was 

 something more ! ", and ordered that the bard should be given 

 one crore and a quarter. 



The song commemorates the above-mentioned act of 

 prodigality, and was probablv composed soon afterwards. To 

 understand the meaning of the sons one must know that the 



6 







1 Kama. 



***■ ***** 



3 Raya Singa, son of Kalo, an abbreviation of Kalyana ^lala. 



6 Tf • 1, , * Kania - 6 Raya Singha. 



w fi r„ nil! 3 W e !!, ^own that lakha-pasavas , and much less krora-pasavf- 

 were never p ai d in cash entirely but only for a small part in cash and the 



