महाराणा कुम्भा (हरविलास सारदा - मेवाड़ साम्राज्य के अद्वितीय विजेता, निर्माता व विद्वान्)

Maharana Kumbha.

appeared on the scene. The great Chauhan Emperor Visaldeva,¹ the uncle of the famous Emperor Prithviraj, who flourished in the 12th century of the Christian era, besides being a great sovereign and a great military commander, was also a great scholar. He conquered the whole of Upper India, carried his arms right up to the Himalayas, making Delhi a tributary to Ajmer, which then became the capital of the Indian empire. In his inscrip- tion on the famous Siwalik Pillar, originally erected in Gurhwal by Emperor Asoka— who according to Mr. H. W. Wells, the author of the Outline of History, is the greatest monarch of all times—and which now stands in the Firoz- shah ka Kotla at Delhi, Emperor Visaldeva states that he had freed Hindustan of all in- vaders from the North West. He was not only a great king and a great commander, but also a scholar and a dramatist, as is proved by his drama Harkeli Nātak, parts of which engrav- ed on black basalt slabs, are preserved in the Rajputana Museum, Ajmer.

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¹ For an account of Emperor Visaldeva, see my article on him in the Vedic Magazine and Gurukul Samachar of Aswin, V. S. 1969, Vol. IV, pp. 292-97, and my book, Ajmer : Historical and Descriptive, page 154.

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