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

Maharana Kumbha. mously ordered his army to withdraw from their stations and let Aurangzeb escape.¹ The Maharana's generosity did not stop here. When the Emperor was out of danger, the Maharana sent him his favourite Circassian wife, whom the Maharana had captured, accompanied by a chosen escort only request- ing that the Emperor would in return refrain from destroying cows which might still be left in the plains. But for this act of foolish generosity, the whole history of India would have been changed and the country spared all the wars in the Deccan, in Rajputana and the Punjab, that filled the last thirty years of Aurangzeb's reign Well does Col. Tod exclaim :—"But for repeated instances of an ill judged humanity, the throne of the Mughals might have been completely overturned." ² The time after Mahmud's defeat was very usefully employed by the Maharana in erecting several forts and generally strengthening the defences of his country. ¹ Orme quoted in full in Tod's Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, Vol. I, p. 383, footnote. ² Tod's Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, Vol. I, p. 379. 57