Cultural History of Rajasthan

Rajasthan with its scenic splendours and age old traditions offers to all a lure of romantic fascination. At one time at a remote past the area had become dry and inhospitable and early traces of civilization were lost due to desert conditions. When rest of India had come under the heels of Turkish aggression, Rajasthan offered welcome shelter to fugitive races from neighbouring regions. Those people settled here, claiming descent from ancient princely castes, had made every endeavour to preserve a continuity of tradition inherited from earlier sources, resisting aggression and turmoils of a prolonged duration. The endeavours of these new settlers had been characterised by courage, endurance, chivalry and romance of unparalleled nature giving the area a new identity under the name Rajasthan. The significance of this development had enthused a number of scholars to trace the roots of this phenomena and most of the scholars had laboured hard to establish that the Rajputs were descended from foreign immigrants of diverse stock. Being primarily a student of art history, the author has viewed the whole significance in the perspective of the vast mass of paintings produced here onwards from the seventeenth century A.D. This study has resulted in an understanding of the unique position that the Rajputs have held in the spectacular cultural mosaic of India. He has set right many calculated efforts of obscuring the issue and has studied in extensive depth the socio-psychological foundations of the Rajput tradition unravelling the wonders of the spiritual undertone of the entire Rajput etho. The study reveals a spectroscope of hightly fascinating nature offering a new, purposeful and clear orientation of Rajasthan, free from prejudices and obscurities indulged in so far by a large cross sections of writers.