July 13th, 2003
Amongst Rajputs the name Hammeer has extraordinary weight power and significance. It is a name to conjure with.
A popular saying proclaims:
Tiriyaa teiyl, Hammeer hutth; chudhey naa doojee baar!
“In two matters, those which concern Love and War there is no room for second thoughts: a girl is anointed only once in a lifetime to become a bride and the Rana Hammeer makes a resolve to fight once and for all”.
“Tiriyaa” is from stree or woman. Teiyl is oil. A girl is ceremonially and ritually prepared for marriage by being put on a special diet and anointed for a week or more with oil and unguents such as perfumes saffron and turmeric to transform her into a flower like being and at her most attractive.
This image of beauty, delicacy and of yielding softness applies only once in the lifetime of a girl.
Hammeer with his resolve fortitude and bravery won back Chittor for the Sisodiyas. His name became a byword for grim determination and unshakeable resolve. The saying highlights the petal like softness of the bride to be and the rock firm resolution of a warrior by contrasting the one with the other.
The problem of knowing more about Maharana Hammer leads us into the labyrinth of Rajput annals. The Rajputs used “history” to create myths of great warriors and their braver consorts who cheerfully embraced fire and flame to accompany their dead or soon to die husbands in death.
One of the most moving verses in the Rajput tradition says
Sut mariyoa bukhtur pahir pur byaahan doodh sawaay
Jheenee mulmul oardh kay, bahou baleywaa jaaiy
My warrior son died in battle wearing chain mail armour (which, of course, was great and heroic )
but the strength and power of the milk of my daughter-in-law’s mother is at least one and a quarter times mine for my daughter-in-law goes to face the flames clad in only gossamer like muslin.
History was not for the recording of facts but a device to create images and fantasies to form the stuff out of which legends are made. This creates problems for chroniclers of events and facts.
The annals of the Sisodiya clan place Rana Hammeer in the 14th Century in time and Mewar in space. The Hammeer Raasau makes him a contemporary of Alauddeen Khilji in time and the Lord of fort of Ranthambor in space.
The Rajput annals have Hammeer defeat and capture Sultan Fakhruddeen Muhammad Jauna Shah known as Muhammad bin Tughluq 1325-1359. After imprisonment for three months the Sultan obtained his freedom by parting with gold worth rupees five lakhs, a hundred elephants and the fort of Ranthambor.
This incident is not recorded in any of the contemporary Persian chronicles. As Ziauddin Barani and Ibne Batuta were both critical of the Sultan they would not have failed to record his defeat and humiliation. Barani wrote after the death of the Sultan and Ibne Batuta wrote in far away Maghreb.
It would appear that for Rajput balladeers Alauddeen Khilji became a motif of the aggressive Dillee Sultan and Hammer the symbol of rugged doughty resistance by the local Rajputs whether of Chittor or Ranthambor
The first “modern” historian of Rajpootana, Mahamahopadhyaaya Kaviraja Shyamal Das writes
Our historical books have been mixed up with religion and fantasy. Even dates are not provided … I therefore turned to Persian books and started writing slanted history like them (ta’assub). Then the Maharana Sajjan Singh asked me to write without attempting panegyric and I wrote the “Veer Vinod” in a factual balanced and even style.
It should be mentioned that Shyamal Das came from a line of distinguished balladeers (Chaarans). This event shows that the patron calls the tune. If he wants panegyric it is provided and if he does not the same people can provide sober history.
Shyamaldas places the death of Mahrana Hammeer in Vikrami Samvat 1421 which corresponds to 1364 A.D. or 765 Al Hijri. He was succeeded by his son Maharana Kshetra Sinh or Kheytaa. This Maharana died a violent death caused by a balladeer (Chaaran) making much of the Rajpootee status of his patron.
We shall need another column to tell the story. It illustrates the preoccupation with honour of the Rajputs of that time.