RAJPUTS AND THE HISTORY OF RAJPUTANA. 



71 



race, lessons which may serve to guide us into the true way of 

 preserving empire, a way that can only be based on upright, just, 

 and honourable, and hence, truly scientific, principles. It was 

 the failure to recognize these principles which in time led to 

 the downfall of the great Moghul empire, and also prevented 

 the Mahrattas from establishing themselves upon its ruins. 



It is unnecessary to dwell long on the remote origin of the 

 Rajputs, who have been said either to be the direct descendants 

 of the Kshatriya, or warrior caste of the earliest Indian writers, 

 or to represent them as a mixed race, which took a name to- 

 which they had little title, or to refer to their alleged invasion 

 of India at a much later period from Central Asia. It is- 

 sufficient to note that powerful rulers of this great tribe 

 were established for a long period in early times in North India, 

 who were gradually driven out from the plain country into the 

 more inaccessible and less fruitful districts which are now 

 known under the names of Rajputana, Malwa, and even Gujarat,, 

 in the first of which they have made their special home, and in 

 which they have maintained themselves to this day. 



Rajputana is in the north-west of India, and lies between the 

 Punjab on the north, Sindh on the west, the united provinces of 

 Agra and Oudh on the east, and Malwa and Gujarat on the 

 south. Its area is nearly 133,000 square miles, or about 11,500- 

 more than that of the British Isles. 



The Aravalli mountains stretch diagonally across it from near- 

 Delhi down to the south-west border towards Gujarat, dividing 

 it into two regions, of which that to the north-west, containing; 

 about three-fifths of the area, is generally sandy, ill-watered and 

 unproductive, approaching even to desert as the west is reached., 

 while that to the south-east, or two-fifths of the whole, has a. 

 fertile soil with forest tracts, and in the south is more or less 

 covered with hills which are well-clothed with woods, both the 

 latter tracts being well watered. Such is in brief the 

 description of the country which is given by Colonel Abbott in 

 his census report for 1891. The states of Marwar, Bikanir, and 

 Jaisalmer, all Rajput, lie in the larger region ; those of Mey war,, 

 with its offshoots, Dungarpur, Partabgarh, Banswara, and 

 Sirohi are in the south, leaving the rest of the province for 

 Jaipur, Alwar, Karauli, Kishengarh, and the Haraoti states of 

 Bundi, Kotah, and Jhalawar, if we regard only the Rajputs to* 

 whom the country belonged for so many centuries ; but we must- 

 add to complete the whole the two Jhat principalities of 

 Bharatpur and Dholpur, part of the Mohammedan state of Tonk r 

 and last, but not least, the British district of Ajmere, which lies 



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