1 THE SUKERCHAKIA MISL. 3845
2 tious chiefs, that everything favoured the adventurous spirit and ambitious
3 designs of the young Maha Singh. Such being the case, it may well be
4 surmised that he would not allow so favourable an opportunity to slip by
5 unprofitably to himself. His early feats in arms had acquired for him so
6 great a reputation that many influential independent sardars joined his
7 - banner. His rapid’ successes gave him an ascendancy over all the Sikh
8 chiefs. His military genius, undaunted courage, stern temper and rigid
9 observance of the rules of delicacy and honour, at times involved him in
10 serious trouble, but he honourably acquitted himself on all such occasions.
11 At an early age, he shook off the trammels of his mother’s guardianship, to
12 pave the way for his own greatness. In the winter of 1778, he put his
13 mother, Méai Desdn, to death with his own hands, because he had long sus-
14 pected one Hakikat Singh of criminal intimacy with her, though he had
15 taken no serious notice of it, and adopted no measures to put a stop to it.
16 It happened that Maha Sing had received into his favour one Khodadad
17 Khan, son of Rahmat Khan, of Jalalpur, near Gujrat, who, having fled from
18 his home, had joined the Sukerchakia sardar with some fifteen or twenty
19 horsemen. This man had killed his own mother on the mere suspicion of her
20 attempting to have criminal intercourse with another. Some two years after, at
21 an entertainment, in which both the sardar and Khodadad Khan, his friend,
22 and associate, were present, jocular remarks were passed between the two, and,
23 in the course of conversation, Mahé Singh, asked Khodadad Khan about the
24 circumstances under which his mother had met her death. The matricide
25 was annoyed at this enquiry, and tauntingly replied that he ought to
26 be ashamed to put such a question to one who had killed his mother on
27 mere suspicion of an attempt to engage in an intrigue, while his own (Maha
28 Singh’s) mother was daily committing adultery with the full knowledge
29 of her shameless and insensate son. This retort rankled in the breast
30 of Maha Singh, but he thought it advisable to remain silent for the time
31 being. He, however, watched for an opportunity to kill his mother; and,
32 one day, finding her alone in her apartment, shot her dead. He then cut
33 off one of her hands with his sword, and, calling Khodadad Khan to the
34 spot, showed him her body and the bloody sword, expressing his hope that
35 the world would now acknowledge that he had done his duty in redeeming
36 the honour of his family, and vindicating his own character, which had been
37 siained by the conduct of his mother. Hakikat Singh, the supposed
38 paramour of the murdered Mai, who was a member of the Kanhia con-
39 federacy, seeing this tragedy, fled to Wazirdbad, his jdgir, at the head of
40 300 horsemen. After all, it was ascertained that the real paramour of Mai
41 Wazirdbadia, as the mother of Mahé Singh was called, was one Jey Ram,
42 a Brahmin, and a family priest, who fled to Peshdwar in precipitate haste
43 to avoid a similar fate to that of his mistress. In other well-informed
44 quarters, it was reported that the Mdi had more than one lover. After
45 this matricidal tragedy, Mahd Singh took to heavy drinking in order to
46 drown the unpleasant thoughts which arose in his mind in consequence of
47 the bloody act. This hard drinking greatly impaired the tone of his nervous
48 system; but persons were not wanting who attributed his uneasiness and
49 nervousness to other causes. They said that, from the first day of his
50 marriage, he had had no faith in the fidelity of his own wife, the mother of
51 Ranjit Singh, and regarded one Lakhpat Rae, dewdn, his father’s minister, a
52 man of engaging manners, as his rival in the affections of M4i Malwain, as
53 the mother of Ranjit Singh was called. Maha Singh possessed all the
54 qualities of a sardar, and left behind him a high reputation for wisdom and
55 bravery mangst his nat,
56 How he put his own
57 mother to death.
58 a
59 His grief at his rash
60 ct.
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