The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen

by Ramya Sreenivasan

  While Padmini’s beauty has endangered the kingdom, she is recuperated as virtuous queen by other means: it is as queen that she articulates the politico-ethical norms of this world. She laments the state of Chitor, defines the ideals of sat and khitrivat, and is firm in her resolve not to surrender throughout the Jain texts: “I will cut out my tongue and burn my body but will not go to the asura’s home (khandun jibha dahun nija deha, pina navi jaun asuran geha)” (Hemratan verse 359). Her beauty recedes from this part of the narrative, suggesting that her virtue (sat) is defined in opposition to her beauty. It is this feminine virtue that then mobilizes the heroic action at the center of the Jain narratives.

  The opposition between beauty and feminine virtue is reinforced in the description of Badal’s wife. Her beauty is an obstacle to her warrior-husband, and she consciously uses it to distract him. Her mother-in-law sanctions her stratagem: “Go and keep your husband within the home . . . Adorn yourself most appealingly, and wear beautiful new clothes. Speak loving and amorous words, and draw him close to you by any means” (Hemratan verses 432–3). Ultimately the wife has to be schooled into virtue by Badal himself, the chief eager to uphold his dharma and win glory. In contrast to such physical beauty, Gora’s wife is termed a sundari when she decides to immolate herself upon Gora’s death in battle. Bhagyavijay magnifies this description: “She bathed and worshipped Gauri; and wore fresh, pure robes. She invoked her husband’s name and blessed him . . . She sat on the sacred pile of wood; and the beautiful woman gave herself up to the refuge of the fire” (Bhagyavijay verses 890–1). Badal’s reaction reveals the narrator’s approval: “Badal heard this and was exultant. Mother, your love is blessed” (Hemratan verse 602). The Jain narratives are thus consistent in underplaying the queen’s beauty and affirming an alternative norm of female virtue, directed towards instigating and inspiring Rajput chiefs and warriors in their pursuit of heroism.

  Badal’s mother and wife offer parallels to Padmini in these narratives: because of their loyalties, if not their beauty, they can potentially obstruct the warrior from fulfilling his higher duty to queen, king, and realm. Badal’s mother tries to dissuade him from doing battle with Alauddin’s forces. He is very young and her only support (to vina kai na biji tek) (Bhagyavijay verse 581). Moreover, the other chiefs have agreed to surrender the queen and see nothing dishonorable in such a course of action. Badal is not even bound to the king by ties of service; his village and home are not the king’s, he supports himself and his household (Hemratan verse 414). Badal’s mother is accurate in absolving her son of any such obligations after his quarrel with the king and his renunciation of royal grants (gras). Badal does not contest this political argument but refutes it by invoking the ideal of kshatriya valor that he is eager to defend (Hemratan verse 424). In the process of affirming these norms of personal bravery, Badal also affirms a loyalty to the king that transcends his service obligations.

  Bhagyavijay’s additions are revealing: he takes the women’s entreaties from Hemratan and inserts extra verses for Badal’s responses. For each plea of theirs, Bhagyavijay’s Badal describes the glories of battle in extended terms. He rebukes his wife for hindering him: “Listen, beautiful woman! Do not obstruct me, my word is unshakeable as the Ved” (verse 628). When Badal’s wife finally accepts his decision to do battle with the emperor’s forces, Hemratan’s narrative has the warrior applauding his wife and defining the terms of his relationship with her: “Now you are truly my mistress. You have spoken wise words, and have preserved the honor of your family’s traditions” (verse 460). Bhagyavijay inserts additional stanzas for emphasis: “You come from an exalted family (uccha ghar), and advise me ill, asked the husband. You are a virtuous woman as befits your lineage (kulvanti nari), [you must] embellish the honor of the household” (verses 638–9). The greater insistence on schooling the wife could suggest an intensifying regulation of women by the mid-eighteenth century, directed towards upholding an increasingly vulnerable political order with the decline of Mughal authority (see next chapter).

  As Padmini is largely instrumental in instigating heroic conduct in the Jain narratives, she recedes from the scene once the chiefs have been stirred to action, reappearing briefly at the end to applaud and reward the victorious Badal. Between Hemratan’s narrative and Bhagyavijay’s version (c. 1702), however, the figure of the threatened queen grows in symbolic significance. Labdodhay’s version (c. 1645) makes her foremost among virtuous/chaste women, defending her honor in adversity (sati shiromani sachi thhai Padmini . . . palyo kashta padya jina shila suhamani re) (Labdodhay 104, verse 1). Bhagyavijay exalts this struggle to epic proportions: as Hanuman was to Ram, so Badal is to Ratansi Rana; and Padmini is like the sati Sita (verse 900). Padmini thus becomes the symbolic norm underpinning a fragile political order subject to constant threats from its own chiefs within, and from “alien” enemies without. The epilogues of the Jain narratives gradually intensify this symbolic investment in her as they make the queen’s virtue (shila dharma) the foundation of this political and moral order.

  The Chitor-Udaipur Patnama is shaped again by its proximity to the official Sisodia perspective in its depiction of the queen. It has been seen that Jain narratives sponsored by the Osval Jain elite, and Charan accounts dependent on royal patronage, diverged in their articulation of the tension between kings and chiefs. In the instance of the queen, however, Jain monastic perspectives and Rajput patriarchal regulations overlapped to a far greater extent. Thus, the Patnama displays even greater ambivalence about the beautiful queen than the Jain narratives; the bardic account does not mention Padmini’s beauty at all, either during Ratansen’s quest or around their marriage. Instead, her father’s lineage is identified as Puvar Rajput,104 a lesser lineage at this time than the Sisodias. The Patnama thus offers two sets of overlapping constructions of Ratansen’s quest. It retains the Jain narrative of a quarrel over food and Ratansen’s search for a padmini woman, as he addresses a challenge to his authority from his wives. Upon this perspective the Patnama superimposes what could be seen as a Sisodia interpretation, as the king marches with his army and marries the daughter of a lesser lineage, just as he has married thirteen other princesses.

  Padmini’s beauty is invoked in the Patnama on two occasions only. Her father Samansi points out that his daughter belongs to the padmini class of women, and as such may be too delicate to withstand the heat and hardships of Mewar.105 The catalog of the four kinds of women is invoked cursorily, to suggest that Padmini requires especially valiant warriors from Sidhal to protect her in Chitor. The other occasion when her beauty is invoked briefly is when Alauddin finally catches a glimpse of her: “standing in all her beauty, from the tips of her nails to her eyes (nakh chakh); the Patsah saw Padmaniji, and was stunned out of his senses; struck blind by her radiance, the Patsah came to his senses only after a long while.” At this point the queen’s beauty is made an index of her husband’s stature: as Ratansen boasts to Alauddin, he has fifteen such padmini women as queens.106 The bardic Patnama adheres to Rajput norms of patriarchal and political decorum that removed the queen from the public gaze. Thus it does not describe the conjugal bliss of Ratansen and Padmini, and has no nakha-shikha-varnan. The figure of the queen is not subjected to the erotics catalog from Ragho Chetan either, that was such a persistent feature of the Jain narratives.

  In contrast to the Jain narratives that symbolically connected threatened queen, endangered realm, and their rescue by heroic chiefs, the Charan Patnama explains the chiefs’ allegiance to the queen in terms of kinship, rather than celebrating an abstract ideal of chiefly heroism. This kinship between queen and chiefs leads ultimately to Padmini killing herself when she hears of her husband’s murder of her “brothers”: “Hajur raised his hand against my brothers; now I have no desire left to live; Padmaniji said this and then also jumped into the lake and became one with the water. Raniji Shri Padmaniji gave up her body in the year Samvat 1258.”107 One can only speculate about the impulse behind this
startling resolution. The bardic account’s unease over the exaltation of chiefly heroism spills over, as it were, to shape its resolution of the queen’s trajectory as well. This is not an abrupt resolution either; it has been prepared for by a lengthy discussion just after Padmini’s marriage to Ratansen, of her horoscope and her longevity. It has already been “prophesied” that she and her “brothers” from Sidhal will live for the same length of time.108

  The Patnama thus consistently understates the stature of the queen; it doesn’t emphasize her exceptional beauty; nor does it make her voice identify the political and moral crisis in Chitor; nor does it depict her immolating herself in climactic proof of her virtue. This absence of the jauhar from this narrative (in contrast to another royally sponsored account in the eighteenth-century Rawal Ranaji ri Bat) is consistent with the manner in which the Patnama concludes its account of Ratansen’s reign. Alauddin conquers the fort as much because of superior force, as due to prior prophecy and the will of Chitor’s patron goddess. However, Chitor is regained within Ratansen’s lifetime, which the Patnama prolongs by the device of a boon the king obtained from Gorakhnath. In the transition from the reign of one king to the next that defines a narrative unit in the genre of the genealogy, Chitor remains with the Sisodias.

  All the Padmini narratives in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Rajasthan had this in common: they shared a sense that the Rajput political order was vulnerable to threats from both within and without. Discomfort with the memory of the first sack of Chitor by Alauddin generated ambivalence about the king involved. Rajput attempts to evolve norms for the conduct of queens overlapped with Jain monastic perspectives on femininity, contributing to further ambivalence about the beautiful queen who endangered the kingdom.

  Threats to the Order

  The narrative of a kingdom in crisis was useful in helping to define threats to this political and moral order: threats directed at the authority of the king. The Padmini narratives validated a particular conception of Rajput polity, by depicting threats that were successfully repulsed. One major threat to this politico-ethical order arose from doubts over the potential loyalty of chiefs to the king, doubts that articulated a contradiction in the formation of Rajput polity. A second challenge to the king’s authority was identified as stemming from his sons. This problematic is fleshed out in the Jain narratives in the figure of Virbhan. In Hemratan’s account, this son of Ratansen is instrumental in persuading the chiefs to surrender the queen to Alauddin. He resents Padmini for having replaced his mother as the favorite queen: “She took away my mother’s good fortune (sohaga). So when Padmini is given away, my mother will become the mistress again” (verses 356–7). Labdodhay also speaks of Virbhan’s enmity (vair) towards Padmini. Dalapativijay’s Khumman Raso retains the trope, only changing the name of the son to Jasvant. The Rajasthani Jain narratives thus described the threat king and queens could face in the polygynous royal household, where co-wives belonged to different natal clans. Labdodhay asserts that Virbhan is misguided, and that he is able to persuade the chiefs because they in turn are misguided in the absence of their leader, the king (65, verse 22). However, it takes the exceptional heroism of Gora and Badal as outsiders to rescue queen, king, and realm (Hemratan verses 381–2). The figure of the resentful son is absent from the Patnama. In a bardic account concerned to legitimize the ruling lineage, the surrender of the queen is not even contemplated. Further, threats to the king’s authority do not emerge from within the elite Rajput household. Instead, such threats are located in the figure of an “alien” enemy: this is the role played by the emperor of Delhi, Alauddin Khalji. The memory of the earlier Khalji campaign was perhaps resonant at a moment when the Sisodia rulers of Mewar were attempting to resist (and then negotiate with) Mughal imperial power.

  Hemratan’s opening description of Alauddin describes his immense power: “The lord of Dilli is a great emperor, his renown boundless throughout the earth . . . All the kings paid obeisance to him. He held everybody under his rule (ekacchhatra), gods and men all feared him” (verses 139–40). Incited by Ragho Chetan into desiring a padmini woman, he sets off on an expedition for Singhaldvip. Unlike Ratansen with his lone attendant, the emperor sets off with an army of twenty-seven lakh men. He plans to obtain a padmini woman by razing the island of Singhal and capturing its king (verses 193–4). The contrast with the game of chess between Ratansen and the Singhal king is striking; the threat of real battle clearly identifies the “enemy” in these Jain narratives. Unlike Ratansen, again, Alauddin’s attempt to reach Singhal fails when the sea thwarts him. This motif of Alauddin’s expedition to Singhal is dropped in the later accounts in Rajasthan, suggesting that the episode was perceived as irrelevant in those accounts.

  Hemratan attributes Alauddin’s expedition to Chitor to his desire for Padmini: “her image shone constantly in his mind” (verse 184). Once Alauddin lays siege to Chitor, however, it is his authority as emperor that is at stake. The terms he offers to Ratansen include demands that his status be honored, and that Ratansen prostrate himself before the emperor. Ultimately, he seeks to achieve his objective by tricking Ratansen and capturing him, thereby revealing his “malice” as a “Khurasani” (verse 337). But if he is deceitful, he is also gullible. He foolishly agrees to Badal’s suggestion that he send his forces back to Delhi before Padmini is delivered to him (verse 527). Concluding with the victory of Gora and Badal, the Jain narratives celebrate chiefly heroism as well as the emperor’s defeat by the Rajput forces; in doing so, these authors treat the figure of the emperor with less than awe.

  Through the course of the seventeenth century, the depiction of Alauddin shifted. Labdodhay’s poem (c. 1645) referred to the defenders of Chitor as hinduvan (62, verse 7), like the Khumman Raso later (c. 1710–34). While the term hinduvan may denote ethnic rather than religious identity,109 Dalapativijay’s narrative indicates other shifts as well. The Khumman Raso omits Alauddin’s expedition to Singhal in search of Padmini; instead, as soon as he hears Ragho Chetan’s description, the sultan decides to obtain Padmini by attacking Chitor and destroying the hindu (verse 2474). For Padmini, surrender to Alauddin is unacceptable because she is a king’s daughter (rajaputri); the term doubles conveniently for her Rajput identity as well. If she is surrendered, her honor and her clan’s will be besmirched and the world will spit on the hinduvan’s lineage (verse 2567). Dalapativijay magnifies Padmini’s plight by invoking epic predecessors within a prayer from Padmini; she pleads with Shyam and Ram to protect her as all others have forsaken her. The lord alone can deliver her from this crisis now, just as he heard the cries of Dropadi in distant Dvarika, just as he helped Bhikham (Bhishma) protect his vow in the Mahabharata, and freed Ugrasen from captivity. Her crisis is comparable since the asuras have captured the Rana (verses 2569–70). Such rhetoric suggests that Dalapativijay’s poem has begun to demonize the enemy more stridently. Thus, he concludes his account of the Padmini episode by arguing that Gora and Badal have defended not only sami dharma but also hindu dharma (verse 2856). Other Jain retellings of Hemratan in eighteenth-century Mewar—by Bhagyavijay, and by an anonymous scribe in 1727—appear equally strident.110 In Bhagyavijay’s version, Alauddin acknowledges to Badal that the latter has defended his dhramma in defending Padmini and the Rao: not only his sam dharam but also hindu dhramma. Badal therefore is the shield (dhal) of the hinduvan (verses 842–4). Repeated references to Badal as Hanuman or as Angad incarnate, and the description of the Rajput warriors chanting the name of Ram as they battle the emperor’s forces (verse 821) point to a reinterpretation of the battle between the Rajputs and the emperor. Thus Bhagyavijay’s Badal taunts Alauddin that the joginis are thirsty for the asuras’ blood (verse 792), and neither Khuda their god nor their angels nor their five prophets can protect them (verse 796).

  The bardic Chitor-Udaipur Patnama echoes the Jain narratives closely in its depiction of Alauddin. The Patnama completes the demonization of Alauddin by adding the classic brahminical tropes of purity an
d pollution to this picture of the asura king. Thus, Ratansen loses Chitor because its patron goddess lifts her mantle of protection from the fort after Alauddin pollutes it. When Ratansen shows Alauddin around the fort, its lakes, tanks and temples,

  the Patsah kept spitting throughout the way; from the spittle of a Masalman, the power of the Hidvani gods was reduced . . . where they had [earlier] protected the high-born (sundar jat); but when their blood or spit fell upon a spot, the gods of Hind no longer remained powerful there. As the Patsah kept spitting, the gods kept retreating from and leaving their abodes in the fort of Chitor.111

  To sum up, the Padmini narratives in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Mewar located threats to the Rajput order in the figure of the emperor of Delhi. Echoing the specific strategies deployed by the Sisodia rulers of Mewar in their struggle for regional dominance, this imperial authority was gradually demonized in shastric terms.

  Anti-imperial Polemics: Alternative Locations and Strategies

  The imprint of Sisodia ideology upon these Padmini narratives is revealed by comparing them with a narrative produced outside the region—Jatmal Nahar’s Gora Badal ri Katha. Composed in the Lahore region around 1623, the narrative invokes the local Pathan ruler as patron. While Jatmal was an Osval Jain of the Nahar gotra, we do not know if he knew the Jain Padmini narratives in Rajasthan. However, the history of transmission suggests that Jain audiences read his version along with the Rajasthani Jain narratives of Padmini; manuscript copies of Jatmal are found routinely in the collections of the Jain libraries (bhandar). This discussion focuses on the elements in Jatmal’s version—his treatment of kingship and fealty, royal marriages, and the status of the enemy—that reveal the regional particularities of the Rajasthani narratives.