Bundi
History
Bundi was founded in 1342 AD by Rao Dewa (Deora),
who was a member of the Hara family of the Chauhan Rajputs, one of the most ancient of the Rajput
tribes, whose origins and early history are so confused with myth and
re-written history that it now seems improbable that fact and fiction can ever
be entirely disentwined. (1) However, the later history of the Rajputs is well documented, so we know that the Chauhans moved to north
The
fortunes of the two states waxed and waned, depending on whether their chiefs
had picked the winning side during the next few years. Raja Chhatarsal’s
son, Ratan Sigh, for instance, took Dara Shukoh’r side against
Aurangzeb, and lost his life in the war of succession. At the time of the death of the last “Great
Mughal”, Aurangzeb Alamgir in 1707 AD (AH 1119) the ruler of Kotah was Rao Raja Bhim Singh (Rajah Budh). He helped Shah Alam to take the throne and
was rewarded with the title Maharao Raja. Budh Singh lost a
war with Jaipur and lost his throne. His
son Umed Singh enlisted the help of Holkar and regained his possessions, with the exception of
the district of Patan, which Holkar
obliged him to part with to pay for the military help he had given to Umed.
“There was
an old saying in Rajput territory that “the Rao and Rana could not meet at
the ahaira or spring hunt without death
ensuing”. There were two such occasions. In 1531AD Rao Suraj Mal and Rana Ratan Singh went out shooting and killed each other and in
1773 Ajit Singh, son of Umed
Singh, killed Rana Ari
Singh while they hunted.” (2, The Ruling Chiefs and Zamindars of
Bishan Singh, son of Ajit Singh,
assisted Colonel Monson against Holkar, and brought
the wrath of the Marathas and Pindaris upon himself
and the state, of which, more anon.
History of Kotah.
The first Kotah chiefs were an offshoot of this old and respected
ruling family of Bundi. At the same time that Rao
Dewa was carving out a fief for himself in Bundi, his grandson, Jet Singh was conquering the Koteah Bhils and occupying their
city, now known as Kotah, and he ruled the
surrounding area from there. Five of his
decedents occupied the throne of Kotah up until 1530
AD. The last of these was dispossessed
by Rao Suraj Mal of Bundi, and the territory became, once again, an integral
part of the Bundi state.
One of Suraj Mal’s descendents, Ratan Singh, early in the 17th century, gave the
Kotah area to his son, Madho
Singh, in Jagir, and the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan
confirmed this assignment, and added Burhanpur to Bundi,
after both Madho and Ratan
had assisted him (then called Kurram Khan, a prince
of the royal blood) in his successful rebellion against his father, the Mughal
Emperor Jahangir. Thus began Kotah’s second separate existence, in 1625 AD.
Rewind to
One Bhao Singh, a descendent of a Jala
Rajput named Rajdhar (who
had founded a petty chieftainship at Halwad in
Maharaja Bhim Singh
of Kotah died in battle in 1720 AD.
A descendant
of Madho by the name of Zalim
Singh became faujdar, at the tender age of eighteen,
in 1758 AD. Just three years later, in
1761 at Bhatwara, during the reign of Chatarsal I (1759-1766 AD), he defeated and routed an
invading Jaipur army, which was numerically far superior to the force he was
commanding. He thereby saved Kotah from a disaster, and earned for himself great
influence and gratitude. In 1766 AD Chatarsal’s brother, Guman Singh,
succeeded to the gaddi, and during his reign Zalim Singh averted a second threatened disaster, this time
an invasion of the Marathas from the south, by buying off their leader
relatively cheaply, with a bribe of rupees six lakhs.
On the death of Maharao
Guman Singh in 1771 AD, the gaddi
passed to his son, Umed Singh (1771-1819 AD). However, the now very powerful and
influential Zalim Singh became the de facto ruler (Regent) of Kotah, which prospered under his leadership and guidance,
despite the constant threats of invasion, rapine and destruction posed by the
Marathas and Pindaris. Partly as a result of this constant pressure,
in 1817 AD, he signed a treaty by which the State of
History of Jhalawar.
Zalim died in 1824 AD.
He was succeeded by his incompetent son, Madho
Singh, who was quickly replaced by his son (Zalim’s
grandson) Madan Singh. These events were closely followed by the
death of Maharao Kisho
Singh, who was succeeded by his son, Ram Singh II (1828-1866 AD). In the meantime, Madan
Singh had proved himself unfit, like his father before him, for the post of
Regent, and his relations with Maharao Ram Singh were
“never cordial”. With the consent of Ram
Singh, the British rescinded the supplementary article of 1818 AD to the treaty
of 1817 AD, and created a new, independent principality for the descendents of Zalim Singh, by severing certain districts from the
History of Jhalawar.
We have
seen how, in 1837AD, Kotah was split, creating a new
administrative area called Jhalawar, consisting of 17
parganas yielding revenue of rupees twelve lakhs,
plus Zalim Singh’s original jagir. The state of Kotah
continued in the possession of its historical ruling family, while Jhalawar became the fief of Madan
Singh and his successors. The larger
part of the new state lay to the south of Kotah and
formed an irregularly shaped tract jutting south into
The first ruler of the newly created state, Maharaj Rana Madan
Singh, was installed on
Madan’s son, Prithvi Singh
succeeded to the gaddi of Jhalawar
on his father’s decease in 1845 AD. Prithvi remained loyal to his British suzerains during the
Mutiny of 1857/58 AD, and in 1862 AD, he was granted, among other things, the
privilege of the right of adoption. Kotah objected to this, but the British over-ruled the objection. Prithvi Singh
exercised his right by adopting a son, Bakht Singh,
who succeeded him on his death in 1875 AD.
Bakht Singh took the name Zalim
Singh, a traditional name for the rulers of Jhalawar,
descendents of Zalim Singh I, and began his reign as
a minor, under the supervision of a Political Superintendent in Council. Soon after assuming full powers in 1883 AD,
he proved himself an incompetent ruler, and had his powers suspended in 1887
AD. These powers were partially restored
in 1892 AD, and then fully reinstated in 1894AD. Matters did not improve, however, and he was
finally deposed for maladministration in 1896 AD. The Superintendency
was reinstated.
One of the
provisions of the treaty of 1838 AD was that the Jhalawar
territory should revert to Kotah on the death of any
future Jhalawar ruler without an “heir of the
body”. This intention had been thwarted
by the granting of permission in 1862 AD for Prithvi
Singh to adopt a son who could succeed him, and that was the reason for the
objections raised by Kotah to the granting of this
privilege.
In
consideration of the original provision, much of the territory that had been
severed from by Kotah in 1838 AD was now ordered to
be returned to that state and this occurred in 1899 AD. The returned areas included the parganas of Shahabad, Khanpur, Aklera and Manoharthana. Therefore, after 1899 AD Jhalawar
came to occupy an area of only about 810 square miles between the Pirawa pargana of Tonk and the Rampura district of
Indore. This became the new state of Jhalawar, and in this truncated form, it was restored to
the descendants of Zalim Singh’s family, and the Superintendency was ended for a second time. The selected ruler of the new state of Jhalawar was one Kunwar Bhawani Singh, of Zalim Singh’s family,
and the full transfer of powers took place in 1899 AD. HH Kunwar Bhawani Singh took the title of Raj
Rana, and his reign proved to be a success, largely
because of his enlightened attitude to the populace, his very considerable
intellect and the high standard of his education. During his reign, he several times attempted
to get the territory previously restored to Kotah
transferred back to Jhalawar, but in this, he was
unsuccessful.
The next
two rulers of Jhalawar, who both bore the title of Maharaj Rana, were Rajendra Singh (1929-1943 AD) and Harish
Chandra Singh (1943-1948 AD). In 1948
AD, Jhalawar was merged into The Matsya
Union, and in 1949 AD, it was incorporated into the Union of Rajasthan, which
became a State in the
The Rulers of Jhalawar.
A.H. A.D.
Madan Singh 1253-1263 1837-1847
Prithvi Singh 1263-1292 1847-1875
Zalim Singh 1292-1314 1875-1896
Superintendency 1896-1899
Bhawani Singh 1899-1929
Rajendra Singh 1929-1943
Harish Chandra Singh 1943-1967
Indrajit Singh 1967-2004
Chandrajit Singh Since 2004
The Mints of
In the
Financial Proceedings of January, 1876 AD, under the heading of “Mints in
Native States” and sub-heading “Jhallawar” (sic!), we
read the following:-
“There are two mints in the Jhallawar State-one at the capital Jhalra
Patan, the other at Shahabad, the chief town of the
detached pargana of that name.
“The former was established in 1801 AD
by Raj Rana Zalim Singh, then minister of Maharao
Bhim Singh of Kotah. On one side the currency bore the inscription
“San-i-jalus Maimanat Manus
Zarb-i-Nandgaon” (Kotah):
on the reverse “Badshah Akbar Shah Ghazi”. On the creation of Jhallawar
into a separate principality, the word Jhallawar was
substituted for Nandgaon.
“The mint at Shahabad is stated to
have been established “from former times”, and its currency to have been known
as the “Nurwar”.
Time does not admit of my making enquiries why it was so called. Possibly both mint and country may have
belonged to the Nurwar dynasty. On re-establishing it, Zalim
Singh changed the word Nurwar, which the currency
bore to Shahabad.” (Shahabad is about 80 miles (130 km.) from Narwar.)
The mint marks on
coins of Jhalawar.
The reverse
of Jhalawar
coins bears two mintmarks. To the right
of the regnal year is the five-leafed jhar called panch pakri ka jhar, and over the
“J” of jalus
is the five-petalled flower called panch pakri ka phulli in contemporary documents. These were found on all coins we examined
with the mint name “Jhalawar, except in the rare case
of a very off-centre strike.
The “Panch pakri ka jhar” mint mark.
There are
three main varieties of this mark. Coins
of type 01 have one dot below the tip of the jhar. Coins of later types come with no dots, or
with two, one above and one below the tip of the jhar. On coins of Bahadur
Shah, these dots first appear on coins with regnal year 10, and are absent from
all earlier coins encountered in this study.
They reappear from about year 19, but are not present on all examples. All Nazarana coins, in all reigns have two
dots. In Queen
The “Panch pakri ka Phulli” mint mark.
There are
variations in this mintmark involving the number of “petals” and the shape of the base,
but these variations seem to be more or less random. Again, many more coins will have to be
recorded before we can say anything about the significance, if any, of these
variations.
Qila Shahabad mint.
Coins of the Shahabad Mint.
The authors
are aware of only one type of coin, known in two denominations (rupee and takka) bearing the mint-name “Qila
Shahabad”. They are ostensibly coins of Kotah (or Bundi), bearing the
regnal years of Muhammad Akbar II, 19 and 22 on the rupees, and 25 on the takka, which correspond with about 1824, 1827 and 1830
AD. The first (RY 19) is the year in
which Zalim Singh died, and his incompetent son, Madho Singh, succeeded him.
Madho remained in charge for only a short time
before giving way to his son, Madan Singh (see
above). These last remarks are by way of
a commentary, and not an attempt to explain the one fact as being the result of
the other. (One of the rupees is in a
private collection known to JL, and the other was photographed with the
permission of the owner, in the normal course of trade. The takka is known
to us only from a photograph published in “Coins of Indian States” by P L Gupta
and shown erroneously as a coin of Bundi. These all fall in the period before Jhalawar was separated from Kotah,
and are, therefore, coins of Kotah state and not Jhalawar. They will,
of course, be covered in the second part of this paper. We have been unable to find evidence of the
date of the closure of the mint at Shahabad.
“The coins [with mint name Qila
Shahabad] are not of [the usual] Kotah or Bundi mints, as rupees with similar RYs
exist with the mint-name “Kotah urf
Nandgaon” and “Bundi”. The coins are identical to the typical
coinage of Bundi-Kotah-Jhalawar [?] of that
time. According to the Financial
Proceedings, the mint at Jhalra Patan
was established in 1801AD and struck rupees with the mint name “Nandgaon” and after the creation of Jhalawar
this name was replaced by “Jhalawar”. The mint name on the coins in question can
best be read “Qila Shahabad”, although the “he” of
Shahabad is missing. It is a reasonable
conclusion that this is a product of the Shahabad mint,
..........” (Shailendra Bhandere,
in unpublished correspondence)
There
remains the complication of several types of coins with regnal years after the
reported closure of the Jhalra Patan
mint, and it seemed to us at least a possibility that these are issues of the
mint at Shahabad. It was noted above
that there are some coins with two dots beside the tip of the jhar, and others with none.
Our first conjecture was that the two dots might be a mark for the mint
at Shahabad, because the later coins all have two dots. However, all Nazarana coins (including type
18, if that is what it is) have two dots.
Since Nazarana coins are used for presentation and other ceremonial
occasions, they are more likely to be in demand at the capital than at a
provincial city a distance away. It is
reasonable to presume that such coins will be minted at the capital for a
number of obvious reasons, not least the security of coins in transit. Therefore, if the two dots are a mintmark,
they are almost certainly the mark for the mint at the capital, Jhalra Patan.
All coins
of the later years have two dots, but Jhalra Patan mint was officially closed in 1892 AD, or RY.34. Therefore, coins with regnal years higher
than 34 must have been struck after the official closure of the mint that we
are suggesting struck them. Are there
any documented instances of this occurring elsewhere in Rajasthan? Well, yes there are.
Table YY
shows the regnal years on all coins known to the authors, separated into two
sections, dependent on whether there are two or no dots beside the tip of the jhar. Both types
were struck in some years. No doubt our
colleagues will be able to add more entries to this table, and we would
appreciate any information which would enable us to update it. All such
material will be acknowledged, and if a sufficient quantity of new entries is
forthcoming, we undertake to publish an updated table in due course. There appears to be some connection between
the fineness of engraving and breadth of flan with the number of dots, but many
more coins will have to be examined and recorded before any conclusions can be
safely drawn.
According
to the Financial Proceedimgs, January 1876 AD,
referred to above, the Shahabad rupee was called the Nurwar,
and so it may be that copies of the well-known Narwar
rupees were at one time struck at Shahabad, which is about 80 miles (130 km.)
from Narwar.
However, the authors know of no coins of that type with the mint name
Shahabad. If minting at Shahabad was
continued after the establishment of the Jhalawar
State in 1838 AD., it is possible that the same type of coins were struck there
as were struck at the mint at Jhalra Patan and bore the mint name Jhalawar. As suggested above, it is also possible that
coins of type 14 continued to be struck there after the closure of the main
mint at Jhalra Patan. The mint name on these later coins is always
off the flan, or is recognisable as part of the name “Jhalawar”
very crudely inscribed, on all specimens known to the authors. Therefore, no confirmation has been possible,
and could only be envisaged if a very off-centred coin of that type were to be
noted, bearing a sufficiently large part of the mint name “Qila
Shahabad” to make its identification certain.