The Portrayal of Maharaja Jaswant Singh I and his Philosophical Activities in the Posterior Literary and Historical Sources

In the geopolitical landscape of the 17th-century North India, Jaswant Singh I of Marwar (r. 1638–1678) was an influent political figure, close to the imperial Mughal court. Viewed from the cultural perspective, he was well-known as the author of scholarly works on Vedānta, the aspect of his intellectual activity understudied to this day. Current paper intends to examine how his philosophical and intellectual endeavors were portrayed in the later dynastic sources. With this in mind, I first consider the portrayal of Jaswant Singh in the Sūraj prakās, text composed by Kaviyā Karṇīdān, the court poet of Maharaja Abhai Singh Rathor (r. 1724–49). Thereafter, I analyse one of the poems on the royal lineage from among those penned by the Nāths during the reign of Maharaja Man Singh Rathor (r. 1803–43). My investigation suggests that rather than transmitting a univocal image of Jaswant Singh as the protector of a well-defined Hindu dharma, the philosophical and religious elements in Jaswant Singh’s later portrayals respond to the diverse agendas of their authors, bringing to light multiple historical representations of the Rajput ruler.