 |
 Krishna Kumari's Sacrifice Every day, lights were lit in the Krishna vilas of the Udaipur palace. As Rana Bhim Singh performed the aarti(prayer) each day in the memory of his daughter, he often wished she had been a plain girl instead of a renowned beauty. Rana Bhim Singh was the ruler of Mewar in the early ninteenth century. The state had lost all its power and was beset by enemies from all sides. The Marathas from the southwest had overrun parts of it and extorted levies from his subjects, while the states of Jaipur and Marwar were poised to attack him. Jaipur and Marwar threatened war, not to increase their kingdoms but for another reason. Both the prices of Jaipur and the Rana of Marwar wanted to marry the Sisodia princess, Krishna Kumari, daughter of Bhim Singh. Bhim Singh, a weak man, dared not refuse either. He knew that whoever lost the hand of his daughter would join his enemies and attack his state. Krishna Kumari, the young, sixteen-year beauty, was told of her father's predicament. Young as she was, she was determined to maintain the heroic tradition of her race and die rather than plunge her country into war. Poison made of the Kasumba blossom was prepared for her. She drank it smiling and died in Krishna Vilas of the Udaipur palace, in a room that is still preserved exactly as it was when the brave Krishna Kumari gave her life to save the state of Mewar from war. Her mother, heartbroken at her daughter's fate, died soon after her. And Rana Bhim Singh, too weak to have prevented the sacrifice, consoled himself through the lonely years of his remaining life by turning his daughter's room into shrine of beauty and splendor. |