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August, 1873.] STORY OF RAnI PINGLA. 215 STORY OF RANI PINGLA. > BY MAJOR JOHN W. WATSON. ACTING POLITICAL SUPERINTENDENT, PAHLANPUR. E last sovereign of Chandra vati of the Par- mar dynasty was named Hun. One day Raja Hun went to the forest to hunt, and there was a native Pardhi also lying in wait for game. Shortly after a black cobra bit the Pardhi, who died immediately from the effects of the bite. The Raja however sat still watching what might happen. After a little while, the wife of the Pardhi came in search of her husband, and found him thus lying dead. She wept and bewailed him much, then collecting wood made a pile to bum the body: when the corpse wras being burned she cut off pieces of her own flesh and threw them on the pile; finally she climbed on the pile and embracing her husband’s corpse became a sati. The King -witnessed all this, and was struck with the devotion of the woman, and on his return home related the cir¬ cumstance to his Queen, whose name was Rani Pingla, the daughter of Raja Somachandra, and said to her that he had never seen or heard of a sati like the Pardhi’s wife. Rani Pingla replied that the woman hardly deserved to be called a sail, that she was simply a sumii, or a brave or desperate character, who had destroy¬ ed herself on the spur of the moment, and that a real sati was one who, on hearing even of her husband’s death, would bathe, put his tur¬ ban on her bosom, and heave a sigh which would end in instant death, the soul escaping through an aperture caused by the bursting of the skull. The Raja rejoined that if there were any true sati in the world, it must be Rani Pingla herself. From this the Queen consider¬ ed within herself that the King might one day test her virtue as a sati. Some time after this occurrence, her spiritual preceptor, Guru Data- triya, paid her a visit. Rani Pingla implored him, saying, “ Reverend Sir, give me such a thing that by virtue of it I may be enabled to know of the death of my husband, even though it should happen far away from Chan- dravati.” The Guru gave her a seed of the Asso Pal tree, and said, “ Sow that in your chaok (yard), and in a short time it will grow into a plant. Whenever you wish to ascertain whether your husband be dead or alive, you should bathe, and then, approaching the plant, put the question to it; should your hus¬ band be alive, water will ooze out of its leaves ; but if he be dead the leaves will wither and fall off.” Rani Pingla received the seed with grati¬ tude, and sowed it in her yard. A few mouths after this, Raja Hun left Chan¬ dra vati to subdue a refractory Mehvasi village, and determined to# send * from thence a false intimation of his death to the Rani to test her virtue as a sati. He desired his Sirdars to be the medium of this communication, but they all indignantly refused, saying that it would be a black deed. At last a Rabari agreed to carry the tidings, and the King gave him his own turban to deliver to the Queen, desiring him to tell her at the last that the news was false. The Rabari then mounted his camel and taking the king’s turban went to Chandra vati. At this time Rani Pingla and her maidens were in a balcony of the palace; the Queen saw the Rabari afar off and intuitively felt that her death was near. She said to her maidens, “ The day of my death has come.” Her maidens endeavoured to com¬ fort her, but, she pointed to the camel now ap¬ proaching nearer and nearer, and said, “ There is the messenger of the fatal tidings.” Just then the Rabari arrived, and began to call out, “Alas! Alas! Raja Hfin is slain!” He then handed over the King’s turban to one of the attendants for delivery to Rani Pingla, to whom it was at once conveyed. Rani Pingla wept bitterly, she then bathed and approached the Asso Pal plant and asked it whether her husband were alive or dead: water oozed out of the leaves, thereby satis¬ fying her that Raja Hfin was alive. She however thought thus within herself: If I do not die, I shall lose the love of my husband, whereas if I become a sati, I shall not only reign with him in Svarga, but shall be re-united to him in my next birth on the earth; further, were I not to die, I should shame my father, Raja Somachandra. She then addressed the Asso Pal tree thus— apiUrf spr nr riirr SgNtc.