Mysterious incidents and facts behind the death of Greatest Emperor

Introduction

It was 1973, a small country Vietnam was in celebrations after getting freedom from America. In the war continued for 20 years with a strong country like America. It was the year when it won finally. During that time, the leaders of that country conducted a press meet with the national and international media. In that press meet, an international reporter intending the President of that country. He asked, "Mr Nguyen Van Thieu, America is very big country compared to yours in all the cases. How was it possible for you to fight with such country all these years? What is your inspiration?" Then Nguyen Van Thieu took the mike and said My inspiration is the life history of a great warrior. If he had born in my country we would have won the world sometime before itself. Proudly he said his name Maharana Pratap. With that, the name of that great warrior echoed all over the countries in the world. Then many people started researching about him and his history. Who is Maharana Pratap? Listening to the name, many people think he belongs to  India. Then how an Indian became the inspiration to the victory of a foreign country? What is his history?

History of Rana Pratap

The pride of India came on to the earth as Rana Pratap on 9th May 1540 at Kumbhalgarh fort in Rajasthan state of North India. Rana Pratap is the king born in the clan of Rajputs who does not any thought other than the victory and a heroic death. His father was Udai Singh II, the King of Mewar and his mother Maharani Jaiwanta Bai. Rana Pratap was the eldest son of Udai Singh. So Rana Pratap became ruler of the kingdom. But the third wife of Udai Singh, Dheer Bai Bhatiyani wanted Jagmal Singh to become the next king of Mewar Kingdom. And she used to do many attempts against Rana Pratap. But due to the daring and heroic qualities of Rana Pratap since his childhood ,Rana Pratap got the crown of Mewar Kingdom.

Rana Pratap struggled a lot to get his crown and his kingdom. Rana Pratap has 11 wives, 17 sons and 5 daughters. Among them, his first wife is Ajbade Punwar. She had two sons Amar Singh and Bhagwan Das. His second wife is Solankhinipur Bai. She had two sons Sahas Mal and Gopal. His third wife is Champabai Jhati. She had three children named Kachra Singh, Sanwal Das Singh and Durjan Singh. His fourth wife is Jasobai Chauhan. She had one son Kalyan Das. Phool Bai Rathore was his fifth wife. She was also called as Pool Kaur. She had two children Chanda Singh and Sheka Singh. Shahmatibai Hada was his sixth wife. She had a child Pura. Khichar Asha Bai was his seventh wife. She had two sons Hathi Singh and Ram Singh. Alamdebai Chauhan was the 8th wife. She had a son Jaswant Singh. Ratnawati Bai Parmar was his 9th wife. A few people say that she was the younger sister of Ajabde the first wife of Pratap. She had a son Maal. Amar Bai Rathore was his 10th wife. She had a son Kunwar Natha Singh. And Lakha Bai was his last wife. She had a son Kunwar Raibhana Singh.

War between Pratap and Akbar

Maharana Pratap's height was 7'5 and 110 kg weight. The weight of Maharana Pratap's spear was 80 Kg. The armour which he used to wear on hands and body weighed almost 80 kg. Along with the sword and all, the total weight comes out as 207 kg it seems. While fighting on the battlefield with such huge weapons, he used to sway the weapons in his hands at high speed making it invisible. All these weapons used by him were kept under the protection of kings of Udaipur. On the other side, at that time with the intention to take the whole India under his control, Akbar used to attack all the kingdoms in India. In the incursion of Akbar, Mewar Kingdom became a big task. Akbar who thought the whole Rajput dynasty will come under his rule if he acquires this single kingdom. Akbar sent six diplomatic missions to the king of Mewar Rana Pratap seeking to negotiate the same sort of peaceful alliance. Among these six, five were lead by a small Rajput king Bhagawan Das from Akbar side. As the part of this alliance, Akbar said he would hand over the entire North India to Rana Pratap. And asked him, you have to be my representative. Rana Pratap who has self-respect and great respect towards the country said, "He will not put down his head at Akbar". With that, all-out war between Akbar and Rana Pratap became inevitable with the intention to take the whole Mewar kingdom under his control.

Anyhow, Akbar took the kingdoms of the kings who were close to Rana Pratap under his control. Another attempt made by Akbar to make the kings of Rajput join him is marriage with the ladies of Rajput. By marrying them like that, a bond was created in between them and they stood as the support for Akbar's rule. With such a big army, many times Akbar used sent his army to fight against Rana Pratap. With his heroic ability and intelligence. Even though his army was small, Rana Pratap fought against huge armies of Akbar and won the wars. At that time, Rana Pratap thought that some way or the other, it is dangerous with Akbar.

In the Aravalli range of mountains in 1559 itself, Pratap built a fort called Udaipur in the name of his father. In 1568, Akbar along with his army attacked the Chittorgarh fort which is the main city of Mewar. In the terrible war between both of them happened for months. The army of Rana Pratap was unable to withstand before the army of Akbar. Rana Pratap who do not like to step back along with his father Udai Singh, they gave chloroform to the entire family and took them out of the fort and sent them to the Udaipur fort. On the day after they were sent out ,Akbar captured the Chittorgarh Fort with the help of his armies. With the intention to capture Pratap.Akbar made Jagmal, Shakti Singh and Sagar Singh join him as they hates Pratap. Akbar knows that he cannot capture the Mewar kingdom unless he defeats Rana Pratap. At this point, Akbar thought to get control over Gogunda, Kumbhalgarh and Udaipur the important place of Rana Pratap. When Akbar sent his 85,000 soldiers on to Rana Pratap. Pratap got ready for the battle at Haldighati with just 20,000 soldiers. The name Haldighati has been derived from the yellow coloured soil of the place.

On 18th June 1576, in Haldighati, a fierce battle took place between Pratap and Akbar armies. In this battle, Pratap was accompanied by Afghan army and a small army of people from the Built tribe of Mewar kingdom. Along with Rajput chieftains armies of 8,000 Totally 20,000 people fought supporting Pratap. Along with Ram Shah Tanwar and his three sons Rawat Krishnadasji Chundawat, Maan Singhji Jhala and Chandrasenji Rathore. Hakim Khan Sur and Rao Poonja led the army of Pratap. The closest person Maan Singh abd Rajput king was appointed as the chief in command for the army of Akbar. Brothers of Pratap (Shakti Singh and Sagar Singh) were also there in the army of Akbar. At the beginning of the war, Pratap army surrounded the Akbar army from two sides. And started killing them. In this battlefield of massive death, the blood was flown all over like the river. So we can understand how terrible the war took place. In this battle, even now the people continue to say about the heroism showed by Rana Pratap like stories.

At some situation, seeing the way Rana Pratap slashed one of the important persons in the army of Akbar from head to toe with his sword. Many of the soldiers were even scared to go near Pratap it seems. At the time when Pratap Army was getting control over the battle. A huge army joined the Akbar army, with that Akbar army became even stronger. As they do not have any other way, Pratap was sent away from the battlefield. The remaining Rajput soldiers and Bhil soldiers went behind the mountains there. With that, the war came to an end. Akbar grabbed the final victory.

In this war, while 60,000 soldiers from Akbar army were dead. 12,000 soldiers from Pratap army died on the battlefield. In this battle, Pratap's favourite horse Chetak was injured and died. Due to this battle, mentally and financially Pratap faced a huge loss. At the same time, Akbar army captured the main cities of Pratap's Kingdom Gogunda, Udaipur and Kumbhalgarh. During that time, Pratap and his people got accommodation at the Bhil tribes in the forest. But with his confidence, Pratap fought against Akbar like a roaring tiger. He started to take back one by one kingdom which he lost. Due to the continuous attack by Pratap, Akbar was unable to withstand to his war strategies. When Akbar fled to Lahore leaving India, Pratap won the 90 percent of the kingdom which was lost by him and his ancestors. With these victories, the dream of Akbar to capture the Mewar Kingdom remained a dream. A few injuries during the battle made him suffer for a long time and he was unable to tolerate the pain.

On 29th January 1597, an unweary warrior, the pride of the country and the greatest hero in the battlefield left this world. After the death of Maharana Pratap, his first son Amar Singh became the king of Mewar kingdom. Listening to the news about the death of Pratap, even Akbar had cried it seems. If there was no such great warrior, the Mewar, he might not have captured such a big empire. Akbar stated that his heroism used to increase the spite in him always it seems. Due to the heroism of Maharana Pratap, there the people has built the temples in their hearts for him. We can understand how great warrior he was.

After the death of the President of Vietnam Nguyen Van who was the great devotee of Maharana Pratap. On his grave, it was written that "This is the grave of the devotee of Maharana Pratap" it seems. Once, when the Minister of External Affairs, Vietnam came on a visit to India, while he was shown the tourist places like the tomb of Gandhi and Red Fort. He asked them to show the tomb of Maharana Pratap it seems. Our officers who were stunned with that. They took him to the tomb of Rana Pratap at Udaipur. It seems that Minister of External Affairs took some soil at the tomb of Rana Pratap and concealed it in his bag it seems. Our officers who were stunned seeing that asked for the purpose of that. He said "if we sprinkle this soil, in which the great warrior and the nationalist like Maharana Pratap was buried on the soil of our country and said the type of great nationalists will take birth even in our country. In  India where such a great warrior and nationalist had born.

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