The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.s2: II. Multān
The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.s2
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II. Multān
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Multān, regarded by the Arab conquerors as the principal city of Upper Sind, was the capital of a region which was often closely connected with Sind, but was ordinarily regarded as a province of the kingdom or empire of Delhi, whose claim to its obedience was established early in the thirteenth century by Shams-ud-dīn Iltutmish, when he defeated Nāsir-ud-dīn Qabācha, the governor who had been appointed by Mu'izz-ud-dīn Muhammad Ghūrī, and was retained, at least nominally, by his successors until the disruption of the kingdom after the invasion of Tīmūr Lang. The authority of the Sayyid dynasty, which acquired the throne in 1414, extended no further than the immediate neighbourhood of Delhi, and Muhammad Shāh, the third king of that line, failed even to observe the formality of nominating a governor to Multān, and the people were compelled to provide one for themselves. Their devotion to the local saint, Bahā-ud-dīn Zakarīyā, who was born at Karor in 1182 and died at Multān on November 7, 1267, had always been conspicuous, and in 1438 they chose as their ruler Shaikh Yūsuf Quraishī, the guardian of the saint's shrine.
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The Shaikh had the merits and the defects of one who had chosen a life of seclusion and devotion. His rule was mild and beneficent, but he was ill-equipped to combat, either by force or by art, the enemies of his rule. An Afghān chief, Sahra Langāh, of Sibī, beguiled him by professing devotion for him, gave him his daughter in marriage, and made paternal affection a pretext for visits to Multān so frequent that they ceased to excite either comment or suspicion. In 1440 he succeeded by a stratagem in introducing his troops into the Shaikh's citadel, deposed him, and banished him to Delhi, where he was well received by Bahlūl Lodī.
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Sahra, who assumed the title of Sultān Qutb-ud-dīn, founded the Langāh dynasty, which endured almost as long as Multān maintained her independence of Delhi. He died in 1456 after a reign of sixteen years, and was succeeded by his son, Sultān Husain I.
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Shaikh Yūsuf constantly urged Bahlūl Lodī to recover Multān, and the Afghān king twice set out from Delhi with this object. In 1452 he was recalled by the advance of Mahmūd Shāh of Jaunpur, whom some disaffected nobles had invited to Delhi, and once again, after 1458, the menacing attitude of Husain Shāh of Jaunpur compelled him to retrace his steps.
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Husain Langāh I was an energetic ruler, and annexed Shorkot and Karor. While he was engaged in suppressing the rebellion of his brother in Karor Buhlūl, moved once again by the importunity of Shaikh Yūsuf, sent his third son, Bārbak Shāh, to attempt to recover Multān, and ordered Tātār Khān Lodī, governor of the Punjab, to support him. The two kinsmen advanced on Multān, but Husain returned by forced marches and utterly defeated them before the city, putting their armies to flight.
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On the death of Buhlūl Lodī, on July 17, 1489, Husain I sent letters of condolence and congratulation to his son and successor, Sikandar Shāh, and the two monarchs concluded a treaty of peace. Husain I abdicated in his old age, nominating his son Fīrūz as his successor, but Fīrūz proved to be a dissolute and worthless ruler. He conceived unfounded suspicions of Bilāl, son of the minister, ‘Imād-ul-Mulk, whom his father had chosen, and caused him to be assassinated. ‘Imād-ul-Mulk avenged Bilāl’s death by poisoning Fīrūz, and Husain, deeply grieved by his son’s death, resumed the reins of power, and designated Mahmūd, the son of Fīrūz, as his heir. ‘Imād-ul-Mulk’s past services and the death of his son were not allowed to atone for his having compassed the death of his prince, and he was executed. On August 31, 1502, Husain himself died, after a reign of forty-six years, and was succeeded by his grandson, Mahmūd, the son of Fīrūz.
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Mahmūd was a profligate youth, and his tyranny drove his minister, Jām Bāyazīd, on whom Husain had bestowed the important fief of Shorkot, into rebellion. War broke out between the king and his vassal, who summoned to his aid Daulat Khān Lodī, governor of the Punjab. The combination was too strong for the king of Multān, who was compelled to relinquish his claims to sovereignty over the Shorkot district, and to acquiesce in Daulat Khān’s decision that the Rāvī should be regarded as the northern frontier of the kingdom of Multān¹. Shorkot was thus lost to Multān and became a fief in the province of the Punjab.
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¹ A strange error is made in the *I.G.* (xviii, 26), where it is stated that in 1502 the Rāvī was fixed as the boundary between the territories of Delhi and those of Multān. This is impossible, for both Delhi and Multān lay then, as now, to the south of the Rāvī. See “The Mihrān of Sind,” by Major H. G. Raverty, *J.A.S.B.*, vol. lxi, part I, 1892.
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In 1527 Mīrzā Shāh Husain Arghūn of Sind invaded the kingdom of Multān at the instigation of Bābur. Mahmūd vainly endeavoured to stay his advance by sending to him a mission charged with the duty of effecting a settlement by negotiation, and, on the failure of his efforts to secure peace, marched forth to a distance of two stages from the city. Here his mission rejoined him on its return, and immediately after receiving it he died, poisoned, as was supposed, by Langar Khān, the commander of his troops, who, on his master's death, deserted to the enemy. The army returned to Multān and proclaimed Husain, the infant son of Mahmūd, king. Shujā‘-ul-Mulk Bukhārī, son-in-law of the late king, became regent, and decided, against the advice of all his officers, to stand a siege. The city after enduring fearful privations, fell in 1528, after a resistance of a year and some months, the young king was imprisoned, and Shujā‘-ul-Mulk Bukhārī was tortured to death. The kingdom was annexed to Sind and Khvāja Shams-ud-dīn was appointed governor by Shāh Husain Arghūn, but was shortly afterwards removed by Langar Khān, who submitted to Kāmrān Mīrzā, brother of Humāyūn of Delhi, and governor of the Punjab on his behalf, thus re-uniting Multān to Delhi, from which it had been severed for a century.
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CHAPTER XX
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THE NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA FROM A.D. 1000 TO 1526
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On no occasion were the earlier Muslim invaders of India called upon to meet a mighty Indian ruler. No Asoka, Kanishka, or Harsha arose to defend the rich and alluring plains. Such rulers were, indeed, rare phenomena in India, which has never been the home of a nation, and whose normal condition was that of a congeries of independent and mutually hostile states, fortunate if they could agree temporarily to sink their differences before a common foe.
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When Muhammad b. Qāsim invaded Sind in 711 the Chālukyas, the Pallavas, and the Rāshtrakūtas were contending for supremacy in the Deccan, and the Arab geographers of a later date corrupted Vallabha Rãi, the title borne by many of the Rāshtrakūtas, imitating the Chālukyas, into Balharā, and used this word as a generic title for the leading ruler in India; but in Northern India the empire of Harsha had dissolved on his death in the middle of the preceding century, and no power had succeeded to the hegemony. How Muhammad dealt with Dāhir, the local ruler of Sind, we have seen. The Chāvadas of Kāthiāwār, the Gahlots of Chitor, the Chauhāns of Sāmbhar, and probably other houses claim to have met and defeated the Arab invaders, but these chiefs ruled principalities contiguous to or not far distant from the conquered state, and their opposition to Muhammad was not a united effort. The claims may well be true, but the conflicts were of little importance. The Arabs had Sind, and if they ever contemplated an extension of their conquests in India they soon abandoned the idea.
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At the time of Mahmūd's invasions India north of the Vindhyas was divided into a number of independent states. The Hindu Shāhiya dynasty, founded by Lulliya the Brāhman at the end of the ninth century, with its capital at Ūnd on the Indus existed on sufferance for some time after the establishment of the Turkish power in Ghaznī, but was extinguished by Mahmūd. Of the history of the kingdom of the Punjab, with its capital at Bhātinda, little is known. Its position compelled its kings, Jaipāl I, Anandpāl, Jaipāl II, and Bhīmpāl the Fearless to stand forth for a time as the principal champions of Hinduism, and though their end was unfortunate it was not dishonourable. On Bhīmpāl's flight to Ajmer in 1021 his kingdom became a province of Mahmūd's empire.
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The other states in northern India at this time were Sāmbhar, or Ajmer, ruled by the Chauhān Rājputs; Delhi, lately founded by the Tomaras near the site of the ancient Indraprastha (Indarpat); Chitor, already possessed by the Gahlots, who were not prominent among the opponents of the invader; Kanauj, still held by the Gurjara Pratīhāras, Harsha's descendants, whose power had waned before that of the Chandel rajas of Jijhoti (the modern Bundelkhand), chieftains of Gond origin, who had advanced northwards until they made the Jumna the boundary between their territory and that of Kanauj; and Gujarāt, ruled by the Chālukyas or Solankīs, who had superseded the Chāwaras. The Jāts inhabited the country on the banks of the Indus between Multān and the Sulaimān Range, and their chieftains seem to have owned allegiance to the Muslim rulers of Multān. To the south of Jijhoti lay Chedi, held by the Kālachurīs or Haihayas, another tribe of Gond origin, and to the west of Jijhoti and Chedi lay Mālwa, governed by a line of Paramāras or Pawārs which had been founded early in the ninth century. Bengal was ruled by the Pāla dynasty, founded in the eighth century by Gopāla, who was elected king of Bengal and founded the city of Odantapurī (Bihār). Kāmarūpa, or Assam, was ruled by an ancient family of Koch, or Tibeto-Chinese origin, which had become completely Hinduized. In Kashmīr the Karkota dynasty, founded in Harsha's lifetime by Durlabhavardhana, still reigned. The fortress of Gwalior was the capital of the Kachhwāha Rājputs, who were probably feudatories of Jijhoti.
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The leading confederates of Jaipāl I in his campaign against Sabuktigīn were Rājyapāla of Kanauj, styled Jaichand by Muslim historians, and Dhanga of Jijhoti. The confederacy formed against Mahmūd in 1001 was far more formidable, and Anandpāl of the Punjab was joined by Vīsaladeva, the Chauhān king of Sāmbhar or Ajmer, to whom was given the chief command, his vassal the Tomara raja of Delhi, Rājyapāla of Kanauj, Ganda of Jijhoti, Vajradāman Kachhwāha of Gwalior and Narwar, and the Pawār raja of Dhār, or Mālwa, all of whom shared in the disastrous defeat suffered by the Hindus on December 31, 1001¹.
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¹ *See ante*, p. 16.
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Ganda Chandel, who had succeeded his father Dhanga in 999, and appears in Muslim annals as 'Nanda, raja of Kālinjar,' which was his principal fortress, succeeded Vīsaladeva of Sāmbhar as the leader of the Hindu confederacy, and, on Mahmūd's return to Ghaznī in 1019, from the expedition in which he plundered Muttra and captured Kanauj, Manaich, and Asnī¹, took upon himself the probably congenial duty of punishing Rājyapāla for having, in order to save Kanauj from pillage and destruction, betrayed the national cause by swearing fealty to the foreigner. Ganda's son, Vidhyādara, aided by the prince of Gwalior, invaded Kanauj and defeated and slew Rājyapāla, who was succeeded by his son, Trilochanapāla.
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¹ See *ante*, pp. 18–20.
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Mahmūd was not slow to avenge his vassal, and in 1021 invaded India to punish Ganda. The details of this invasion have already been given². Ganda, with the confederate army of 36,000 horse, 105,000 foot, and 640 elephants, prepared to meet the invader on the Sai, between the Ganges and the Gumtī, but his courage failed him, and after his flight Mahmūd captured Bārī, the new Pratīhāra capital, and returned to Ghaznī with the booty which he had taken from Ganda's camp. In 1022 he returned and compelled Ganda's son to surrender to him Kālinjar, which long remained a bone of contention between Hindu and Muslim in India, and was regarded as the key to the region south of the Jumna and east of Mālwa.
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² See *ante*, p. 21.
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Hindu annals do not credit the Solankīs of Gujarāt with a share in the various confederacies formed to oppose the invader, but the considerations which led Mahmūd to undertake the most famous of all his expeditions, that to Somnāth, have been recorded³. Bhīm the Solankī then ruled Gujarāt, having his capital at Anhilvāra, in the neighbourhood of the modern Pātan. After the capture of Beyt Shankhodhar and the flight of Bhīm, Mahmūd, before returning to Ghaznī, made arrangements for the administration of Gujarāt. According to the legend related in some Muslim histories an ascetic named Dābshilīm, who had some claim to the throne, was brought to his notice as a fit person and was appointed by him to govern the country. At his request Mahmūd carried to Ghaznī for safe custody another Dābshilīm, a relative whose pretensions the newly made king dreaded, and detained him until king Dābshilīm was securely seated on his throne, when he sent him back to Gujarāt at the king's request. When the prisoner approached Anhilvāra the king, according to custom, went forth to meet him, and, arriving at the appointed spot before him, passed the time in hunting. At length, overpowered by the heat and by fatigue, he lay down under a tree to rest, covering his face with a red handkerchief. A bird of prey, taking the handkerchief for a piece of flesh, swooped down upon it and, driving his talons into the king's eyes, destroyed his sight. One so injured was disqualified from reigning, and the prisoner Dābshilīm, arriving at that moment, was acclaimed by the popular voice as king, while the blinded man was confined in the dungeon under the throne-room which he had destined for his relative.
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³ See *ante*, p. 23.
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Dābshilīm is well known in Muslim literature as the king to whom the Brāhman, Bīlpāy, related the fables of the jackals Kalīla and Dimna, which have been translated into Arabic and Turkish, and twice into Persian, but the name is unknown in Indian history and it is difficult to connect it with any Indian king. It has been suggested that Mahmūd, after the flight of Bhīm I, appointed his uncle, Durlabha, to the government, and that the two Dābshilīms represent Durlabha and his son, but Lt.-Colonel Tod's explanation appears to be more probable. He says¹ that the Dābhis were a well known tribe, said by some to be a branch of the Chāwaras, who had preceded the Solankīs on the throne of Gujarāt, and suggests that the name is a compound of Dābi Chāwara.
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¹ Tod, i, 122 and note.
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The remnant of the dominions of Rājyapāla of Kanauj had passed to his son, Trilochanapāla, who first transferred his capital to Bārī, which was taken by Mahmūd, and afterwards resided much at Benares, which was attacked and plundered by Ahmad Niyāltigīn, the traitor who governed the Punjab for Mas‘ūd, the son of Mahmūd.
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Hānsī, a possession of Mahīpāl, raja of Delhi, was captured early in 1038 by Mas‘ūd, but in 1044 Mahīpāl recovered from Maudūd, Mas‘ūd's son, not only Hānsī, but also Thānesar and Kāngra. In 1079 Ibrāhīm, the eleventh king of the Ghaznavid dynasty, led a raid into Western India, and early in the twelfth century Muhammad Bāhlīm, a rebellious governor of the Punjab under Bahrām, the fifteenth king, established himself as far south as Nāgaur, from which town he governed a large tract of country; but the power of the Ghaznavids had long been declining, and, with the exceptions already mentioned, the Hindu states of India were not molested, and were left free to pursue their internecine strife.
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After the submission of Rājyapāla of Kanauj to Mahmūd the power of the Pratihāras declined, Trilochanapāla and his successors were styled rajas of Kanauj, but lived principally at Manaich, now Zafarābād, near Jaunpur, and more remote than their ancient capital from the menace of the Chandel. Shortly before 1090 Chandradeva, of the Gaharwār clan, acquired possession of Benares and Ajodhya, both of which had been included in the kingdom of Kanauj, and extinguished the last vestiges of the authority of the Pratīhāras by extending his dominions as far as Delhi, which he is said to have captured and occupied, reducing the Tomaras to vassalage.
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Gāṅgeyadeva Kālachurī of Chedi, who reigned from 1015 to 1040, extended his ancestral dominions, and almost succeeded in becoming the paramount power in Northern India, but was not powerful enough to crush the Chandel kingdom. His son Karṇadeva, who reigned from 1040 to 1100, invaded the Pāla kingdom of Magadha, or Bihār, in 1039, before his father’s death, and defeated the reigning king, Nayapāla. In 1060 he and Bhīm II of Gujarāt attacked and crushed Bhoj, the learned king of Mālwa.
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Mālwa had been ruled for two centuries and a half by chiefs of the Paramāra or Pawār tribe, whose capital was at first Ujjain and later Dhār. The line was honourably distinguished by its love for and encouragement of learning, and in this respect Bhoj was not the least distinguished of his house. The death of Bhoj broke the power of the Pawārs, who, however, ruled Mālwa until the beginning of the thirteenth century, when they were ousted by the Tomaras. The inclusion of the Deccan in the Muslim kingdom of Delhi between the years 1294 and 1347 made Mālwa a highway between the northern and the southern provinces, and destroyed the power of the Hindu rulers of the country; but the Tomaras were succeeded by the Chauhāns, who enjoyed some power and influence in Mālwa until the end of the fourteenth century, when it became an independent Muslim kingdom.
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The victory over Bhoj of Mālwa benefited the Kālachurī but little. Some years later Karṇadeva suffered several defeats at the hands of his enemies, the chief of whom were Kīrtivarman Chandel, who reigned from 1049 to 1100, and Vigrahapāla III, king of Bihār and Bengal; and little more is heard of Chedi. After 1181 the Kālachurī rajas of northern Chedi disappear, having probably been supplanted by Bāghel chiefs of Rewa.
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The Gahlot kingdom, which is still represented by the State of Udaipur, had been founded before the invasion of Sind by Muhammad b. Qāsim, and tradition credits its ruler with having met the Muslims in the field in those early days, but the state seems to have taken no part in the resistance offered to Mahmūd. The same may be said of the Pāla kings of Bengal and Bihār, who apparently believed that they were not concerned in the fate of the Punjab and Hindūstān, though the dominions of Dharmapāla, the second of the line, are said to have extended from the Bay of Bengal to Delhi and Jullundur. They were devout Buddhists, and their religion perhaps set a gulf between them and their Brahmanical neighbours. Mahīpāla I was reigning in Bengal during the period of Mahmūd’s raids, but before the next wave of invasion, destined to engulf Bengal, had broken over Northern India, and during a serious rebellion which broke out in the Pāla kingdom about the year 1080, Choragangā, king of Kalinga, extended his conquests to the extreme north of Orissa, and Sāmantasena, a chieftain from the Deccan, founded a principality at Kāsipurī, now Kasiārī, in the Mayūrbhanj State. His grandson, Vijayasena, established his independence about 1119, and took much of Bengal from the Pālas, his aggression being doubtless stimulated by religious antagonism, for all the Senas were Brahmanical Hindus. Vallālasena, or Ballāl Sen, Vijayasena’s son and successor, was the most powerful of the line. He introduced Kulinism into Bengal, and is said to have founded Gaur, or Lakhnāwatī, but the city was probably built before his reign. About 1175 he was succeeded by his son, Lakshmanasena, who was driven from his capital, Nadiya, by Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn Muhammad b. Bakhtyār¹. The capture of Nadiya (Nuddea) did not immediately extinguish the dynasty, which continued its existence for four generations after Lakshmanasena, but the rajas were mere vassals of the Muslim rulers of the country.
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¹ ^1 *See ante*, p. 46.
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Rāmapāla, who reigned from about 1077 to 1120, was one of the most famous of the Pāla kings. His father, Mahīpāla II, was slain by rebels, and Rāmapāla was compelled to flee, but obtained assistance from many other princes, defeated and slew the rebel chief, and regained the throne. He extended his dominions and encouraged Buddhism, and it was not until the end of his reign that the Senas established themselves in Bengal. Rāmapāla has sometimes been regarded as the last of the Pālas, but he was succeeded by five kings of his family, who, though Bengal had been lost, retained Bihār. Indradyumnapāla, the last known raja of the line, was reigning at the time of the Muslim invasion of Bihār², in which he probably lost his life, as nothing more is heard of his house.
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² ^2 *See ante*, p. 42.
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The Muhammadan kingdom of the Punjab had long ceased to be a menace to the Hindu princes of India, but they cannot have been ignorant of the rise of new powers beyond the Indus. No menace, however, sufficed to deter them from their internecine disputes.
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A long line of princes of the Chauhān tribe had ruled the principality of Sāmbhar, of which Ajmer had become the chief town, and in the middle of the twelfth century Vigraharāja (Vīsaladeva or Bīsal Deo) of this line extended his dominions in an easterly direction by capturing Delhi from a chief of the Tomara tribe, who had founded the city in A.D. 993-94 by building the Red Fort where the Qutb Mīnār now stands. The city was of no great importance but Vigraharāja’s victory extinguished a minor dynasty and might have made for unity and strength, had there not been other competitors for power in the field.
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Vigraharāja’s nephew and successor was Prithvī Rāj, known to Muslim historians as Rāī Pithaurā, the most chivalrous warrior of his time in India: but the most powerful of Indian princes at the end of the twelfth century was Jayachandra, the Gaharwār raja of Kanauj and Ajodhya, styled by the Muhammadans ‘Jaichand, raja of Benares.’ He had a marriageable daughter, in whose honour he held a *swayamvara*, the assembly to which, in accordance with ancient custom, princes prepared to offer themselves as suitors for the lady’s hand were summoned, in order that she might make her choice of a husband. The *swayamvara* was regarded as an assertion of superiority and Prithvī Rāj failed to respond to the invitation and to appear as a formal suitor, but his reputation had reached the princess and he wounded Jayachandra’s honour by carrying off the not unwilling damsel. This romantic exploit bred bitter enmity between the two leading powers of Northern India, and a victory in 1182 over the Chandel raja, Parmāb, and the capture of the important fortress of Mahoba, while they enhanced the reputation of Prithvī Rāj, weakened the Hindu cause by sowing further dissension between the native princes.
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These princes, however, sank their differences and united to oppose the invader at the first battle of Tarāorī¹, in which Muhammad b. Sām was defeated, for the Muslim writers say that all the rajas of Hindūstān were present at that battle; but Jayachandra of Kanauj seems to have found an alliance with his son-in-law too high a price to pay even for national freedom, for he stood aloof from the Hindu confederacy at the second battle of Tarāorī², which laid the foundation of Muslim rule in Hindūstān, and if Hindu legend is to be believed even allied himself to the national enemy.
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¹ See *ante*, p. 40.
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² *Ibid.*
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The operations of the Muslims after the second battle of Tarāorī, in 1192, have been described in Chapter III. Muhammad b. Sām marched at once on Ajmer, the Chauhān capital, and, after sacking the city and enslaving many of its inhabitants, appointed Govindarāja, the son of Prithvī Rāj, as its governor. According to the Muslim chroniclers the new raja was distasteful to his subjects by reason of his illegitimacy¹, but the truth was that he was a minor, and was not fit to contend with the enemies of his people. Harirāja, called Hemrāj by Muslim historians, who was the younger brother of Prithvī Rāj, accordingly deposed his nephew and usurped the throne. Govindarāja fled to the fortress of Ranthambhor, where, as will be seen, he carried on the line of his house, not without glory. He was succeeded by his son, Balhanadeva, who was reigning in 1215, and Balhanadeva was succeeded by his son Prahlād, who was killed by a lion. Vīra Nārāyan, Prahlād’s infant son, succeeded to the throne of Ranthambhor, and his uncle, Vagbhata, assumed the regency. The history of the Chauhāns of Ranthambhor will be resumed later.
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¹ See *ante*, p. 43.
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The fate of Harirāja in Ajmer has already been recorded². After suffering two defeats at the hand of Muhammad’s lieutenant, Qutb-ud-dīn Aibak, he committed suicide, and Ajmer, the capital of the Chauhāns, became a Muslim city.
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² See *ante*, p. 43.
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Jayachandra of Kanauj had, since the second battle of Tarāorī, acquiesced in all the acts of aggression committed by the invaders, but Muhammad b. Sām learned that he had repented of the alliance and was preparing to oppose him, and in 1193 he invaded India with the object of attacking him. It was probably the invasion of Bihār³, the fate of its monks, and his own isolation that aroused in him, too late, a sense of the folly of his association with the enemies of his country. His fate has been recorded in Chapter III.⁴ Benares was plundered, Kanauj was destroyed, and the kingdom of the Gaharwārs came to an end. The Muslims did not, however, immediately establish their authority in this region, and chiefs of the Chandel tribe from Mahobā ruled as local sovereigns in Kanauj for eight generations. The Gaharwārs were extinguished, and there is no evidence to support the legend that a remnant migrated to the country now known as Mārwār and became known as Rāhtors, or the claim of the Mahārāja of Jodhpur to descent from the old royal house of Kanauj.
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³ See *ante*, p. 42.
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⁴ See *ante*, p. 43.
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The conquest of Bihār involved the destruction of the Pāla dynasty, which had borne sway in Bengal and Bihār for nearly four centuries, and in the latter country alone for nearly a hundred years. Indradyumnapāla, the last king of the line, was alive in 1197, but retained no power during the later years of his life.
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Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn Muhammad b. Bakhtyār, having extinguished the Pālas of Bihār, drove Lakshmanasena or Lakshman Sen of Bengal from his capital and established Muslim rule in Bengal¹. Lakshmanasena, and, after him, his son and his grandson ruled at Vikrampur as vassals of the Muslim governor of Bengal, but the dynasty virtually came to an end with the capture of Nadiya (Nuddea). His conqueror died shortly after his disastrous expedition into Bhutān, or Tibet², where the destruction of his army was partly due to the treachery of the king of Kāmarūpa (Kāmrūp), or Assam. This kingdom successfully resisted all attempts of the Muslims to invade it, but the Hinduized Koch, who ruled it at this time, succumbed in 1228 to an invasion by the Āhoms, a Shān tribe, whose chiefs ruled the country until 1816, when they were conquered by the Burmese, who in 1824, during the first Burmese war, were expelled by British and Indian troops, and in 1826 Assam became a province of the British empire in India.
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¹ See *ante*, p. 46.
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² See *ante*, pp. 49, 50.
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The extinction of the Kanauj dynasty and the disappearance of the Gaharwārs left the Chandels of Jijhoti the only formidable neighbours of the Muslims. Paramardī, or Parmāl, who had been defeated by Prithvī Rāj, was still reigning at Mahobā³, which had superseded Khajrāho⁴ as the residential capital of the Chandels. The principal fortress in their dominions was Kālinjar⁵, which had been surrendered to Mahmūd of Ghaznī by the son of Ganda Chandel, and in 1202 Qutb-ud-dīn Aibak marched against the fortress, the account of his siege and capture of which has already been related⁶. After the death of Paramardī, the Chandels, as an important dynasty, disappeared, and the tribe dispersed, but petty chieftains of the race held lands in Mālwa, as local rulers, until the sixteenth century.
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³ In 25° 18′ N. and 79° 53′ E.
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⁴ In 24° 51′ N. and 79° 56′ E.
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⁵ In 25° 1′ N. and 80° 29′ E.
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⁶ See *ante*, p. 47.
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All the ruling houses of Hindūstān proper, except the Chauhāns of Ranthambhor and the Katehriya Rājputs of Katehr, the modern Rohilkhand, had now been extinguished or expelled, and the latter were held in check by the Muslim garrison of Budaun, their former capital, which had been one of the earliest conquests of Qutb-ud-dīn Aibak and remained ever after in Muslim hands; but the Rājputs made Āonla⁷ their capital, and Katehr virtually retained its independence until the Mughul empire was firmly established in the middle of the sixteenth century. A strong king at Delhi might cow the Rājputs into submission, but whenever the central authority was weakened the Hindus rose and attacked the Muslims. The inhabitants of Katehr often suffered severely for the turbulence of their chiefs, who themselves usually found an asylum in the hills of Kumāon until the storm had passed.
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⁷ In 28° 17′ N. and 79° 10′ E.
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But though the great ruling houses were extinct, the people were not left leaderless. The history of the Doāb and the country on either side of the Ganges contains evidence that the local Hindu landholders, petty rajas, who were probably regarded as fief-holders and paid tribute or rent when the central government could enforce the demand, were ever ready to resist oppression, as in the reign of Muhammad Tughluq, and to take advantage of the weakness of their rulers, as during the reigns of the feeble Sayyids, or of their dissensions, as in the struggle for supremacy between the kingdoms of Delhi and Jaunpur.
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The most turbulent of these petty chiefs were the leaders of the Meos, inhabitants of Mewāt, the ‘ill-defined tract lying south of Delhi and including part of the British Districts of Muttra and Gurgāon, and most of the Alwar and a little of the Bharatpur State’; the Hindu landholders of Baran, or Bulandshahr, and Etāwah; and various chiefs holding lands near the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna. The depredations of the Meos extended across the Jumna into the Doāb, and northward even into the streets of Delhi. The ruling family accepted Islam, and became known as Khānzādas; and Bahādur Nāhar, whose tomb still stands at Alwar, and who ruled Mewāt at the time of Tīmūr’s invasion at the end of the fourteenth century, was one of the most powerful chiefs in the neighbourhood of Delhi.
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The capture of Ranthambhor by Shams-ud-dīn Iltutmish¹ adds little to the reputation of that great king. According to the Hindu records he was defeated before the fortress in 1225, but succeeded in persuading the young raja, Vīra Narāyan, to visit him at Delhi, poisoned him, and took possession of his capital. Mālwa was still independent under the Pawārs, and the raja then reigning at Dhār attempted to win the favour of Iltutmish by attacking Vagbhata, Vīra Narāyan’s uncle, who had been regent at Ranthambhor, but Vagbhata defeated him, and after the death of Iltutmish recovered Ranthambhor from the officer who held it for Raziyya, and was acclaimed by the Chauhāns as their king. Muslim historians allege that he was defeated at Ranthambhor by Raziyya’s troops, but are constrained to admit that the troops evacuated the fortress after dismantling it².
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¹ See *ante*, p. 53.
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² See *ante*, p. 59.
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In 1249 Ghiyās-ud-dīn Balban, who afterwards ascended the throne of Delhi, attempted to recover Ranthambhor for his master, but was obliged to retire discomfited¹. The Muslim historian styles Vagbhata Nāhar Deo, confusing him, perhaps, with a Meo chief, who had probably allied himself to Vagbhata, for Balban, before marching on Ranthambhor, had been engaged in an attempt to establish order in Mewāt. Vagbhata was succeeded by his son, Jaitra Singh, who abdicated, and was succeeded in 1282 by his son Hamīra, known to the Muslims as Hamīr.
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¹ See *ante*, p. 67.
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Hamīra was warlike and enterprising. After subduing Arjuna, a minor chieftain of Mālwa, he attacked the Gond raja of Garha-Mandlā, who submitted and paid tribute.
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The Pawār had gained little by his attempt to ingratiate himself with the foreigner. In 1234 Iltutmish invaded Mālwa and sacked both Bhīlsa and Ujjain, and Hamīra, after succeeding his father at Ranthambhor, resolved to punish Bhoja II, the reigning king of Mālwa, for the crime of his predecessor. Bhoja was defeated, and Hamīra made a triumphal entry into Ujjain, the ancient capital of Mālwa. Not content with this success, he marched northward, compelled the Gahlot, Lachhman Singh, to acknowledge his supremacy, captured Ābū and restored it to its hereditary prince in return for a promise to pay tribute, and marched homeward through Ajmer, Pushkar, Sāmbhar, and Khandela, all of which places he captured.
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This vainglorious expedition enhanced Hamīra's military reputation and was probably not without effect on the attitude of Jalāl-ud-dīn Fīrūz, the first king of the Khaljī dynasty, who, in 1291, marched to Ranthambhor, but decided², after reconnoitring the fortress, that it would be dearly captured at the price in human lives which he would have to pay, and turned aside to Jhāīn and Mandāwar.
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² See *ante*, p. 95.
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Hamīra's defiance of 'Alā-ud-dīn Muhammad by harbouring the leaders of the mutiny which had broken out in Ulugh Khān's army at Jālor, as it was returning from the conquest of Gujarāt, cost him his kingdom and his life³. Ulugh Khān followed the fugitives into the territory of Ranthambhor and defeated the Rājputs under two officers named Bhīm and Dharma Singh, but was unable to undertake the siege of the fortress, and retired to Delhi. Hamīra emasculated Dharma Singh, and he and his brother fled to Delhi and besought 'Alā-ud-dīn to avenge this outrage. Ulugh Khān and Nusrat Khān were sent to open the siege of Ranthambhor, and, having first captured Jhāīn, encamped before the fortress, but were unfortunate. Nusrat Khān was killed and Ulugh Khān was defeated and driven back to Jhāīn. ‘Alā-ud-dīn then marched from Delhi to conduct the siege in person, and after some delay arrived before Ranthambhor. The siege was protracted for some months, and Ranamalla, or Ranmal, Hamīra’s minister, and some of the principal officers of the garrison deserted to the Muslims. The assault was delivered on July 10, 1301, and according to the Hindu version of the affair both Hamīra and Mīr Muhammad Shāh, the leader of the mutineers who had found an asylum at Ranthambhor, performed the rite of *jauhar* and were slain. The queen, Rangadevī, immolated herself, and Hamīra’s brother Virama and the heroes Jajar, Gangādhar Tak, and Kshetra Singh Pawār shared their master’s fate. The traitor Ranamalla and his companions were put to death by ‘Alā-ud-dīn. Thus ended Chauhān rule in Hindūstān. The Raja of Nimrāna, in the north of the Alwar State, claims descent from Prithvī Rāj.
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³ See *ante*, p. 101.
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Reference has been made to the conquest of Gujarāt by ‘Alā-ud-dīn’s officers, Ulugh Khān and Nusrat Khān. Bhīm II, ‘the Simpleton,’ who reigned from 1179 to 1242, was the king who defeated Muhammad b. Sām, and though he was afterwards defeated by Qutb-ud-dīn Aibak, who plundered his capital, Gujarāt was not occupied by the Muslims, but remained a Hindu state. Bhīm II was the last of his line, the Solankīs, of which his ancestor Bhīm I, the contemporary of Mahmūd, had been the second.
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Gujarāt was the richest kingdom of India. ‘It was to India what Venice was to Europe, the *entrepôt* of the products of both the eastern and western hemispheres.’ Its princes favoured sometimes the Jain and sometimes the Buddhist heresy. The court of Siddhārāja Jayasingha, the seventh of the Solankīs, who reigned from 1094 to 1143 and was one of the most powerful of Indian rulers, was visited by the geographer al-Idrīsī. On Bhīm’s death in 1242 his throne passed to Vīsaladeva Vāghela of Dholka, who was descended from Siddhārāja Jayasingha, and who reigned from 1243 to 1261.
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Karandeva, the Rāī Karan of the Muslims and the fourth of the Vāghela dynasty, was reigning in 1297, when ‘Alā-ud-dīn Khaljī sent his brother Ulugh Khān and Nusrat Khān to make an end of Hindu rule in Gujarāt. They were successful, and the Rājput Kingdom was overthrown¹. ‘The walls of Anhilvāra were demolished; its foundations excavated, and again filled up with fragments of their ancient temples.’
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¹ See *ante*, p. 100.
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The fate of Karan and his family has been related elsewhere. His wife was captured and became the wife or concubine of the Muslim king of Delhi. Karan himself fled, with his beautiful daughter Deval Devī, and took refuge with Rāmchandra of Deogīr, well content now that his daughter should wed his host’s son, to whom, in his pride, he had formerly refused her; but the prince of Deogīr never possessed his bride, who was captured by the Muslim officer Alp Khān near Ellora¹, and carried to Delhi, where she became the wife first of Khizr Khān, ‘Alā-ud-dīn’s eldest son, who was afterwards murdered by order of his brother, Qutb-ud-dīn Mubārak, into whose possession she passed, and at last she suffered the degradation of the embraces of the foul outcaste, Khusrav Khān, who murdered his master and usurped his throne. Karan established himself for a time in the Nandurbār district, on the borders of the small state of Baglāna, or Bāglān, but his line died with him.
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¹ See *ante*, p. 113.
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In Western India, as in Hindūstān, Hindu rule, in the hands of minor chieftains, survived the extinction of the royal house. Chauhāns held Chāmpāner and Pavagarh until 1484, when Mahmūd Begarha of Gujarāt took their stronghold² and the survivors fled to Chota Udaipur and Deogarh Bāriya, still held by their descendants. On the north-eastern frontier the state of Sirohi was held, as at present, by another branch of the Chauhāns, known as Deora Rājputs from the name of an ancestor, Deorāj, who migrated westward when his clan was driven from its patrimony, Nādol, by Qutbud-dīn Aibak. The raja of Sirohi was ever ready to take advantage of the weakness of the kings of Gujarāt by raiding the northern districts of their kingdom.
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² See *ante*, pp. 309, 310.
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The peninsula of Cutch, too, remained unmolested by the Muslim governors and kings of Gujarāt. Sammā Rājputs of Sind, fleeing from that country before the Sūmras, who had superseded them as its rulers, found an asylum with the Chāvada Rājputs who ruled Cutch, and in about 1320 overcame their hosts and took the kingdom from them. Those of the Sammā tribe who remained in Sind accepted Islam, and their kinsmen in Cutch, not prepared entirely to abandon the religion of their fathers, adopted a strange medley of the two faiths. The peninsula was divided between three branches of the tribe, all known as Jādeja, or ‘the sons of Jāda,’ until 1540, when Khengār, the head of one branch, with the help of Mahmūd III of Gujarāt reduced his kinsmen to obedience and became sole ruler. His uncle, Jām Rāwal, fled to Kāthiāwār, and received from the Muslim king of Gujarāt the fief of Nawanagar, still held by his descendants. The raja of Cutch was nominally bound to furnish a contingent of 5000 horse to the army of the Sultan of Gujarāt.
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The south-western region of the peninsula of Kāthiāwār was held by the Chudāsima Rājput chief of Girnār, the group of hills rising above the fortress of Junāgarh. His dominions included a great part of the ancient Surāshtra, or Sorath, in its modern form. This remote corner of India was not molested by the early Muhammadan invaders, but the raja reigning in the middle of the fourteenth century harboured the rebel Taghī, who had risen in Gujarāt against the authority of Muhammad Tughluq, whose evil days were drawing to a close. Muhammad pursued the rebel, and attacked both the raja of Girnār and the raja of Cutch, who was his ally. Taghī evaded him and fled into Sind, but the fortress-capital of Girnār was taken, and both the raja and his ally were compelled to make obeisance to Muhammad¹, who was too intent on capturing Taghī to remain in Kāthiāwār, and left that country without any more material assertion of his authority.
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¹ See *ante*, pp. 171, 172.
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The raja of Girnār appears to have been independent of the earlier Muslim kings of Gujarāt, or at least to have paid tribute irregularly, and only when it was levied by force, for in 1466 Mahmūd Begarha invaded his state, and by means of wholesale pillage and massacre, including the sacking of a temple and the slaughter of its defenders, compelled him to agree to pay tribute. In the following year a threat sufficed to deter him from using the insignia of royalty, which he had hitherto displayed², and in 1469 Mahmūd, judging that the time had come to crush the ‘misbelievers,’ invaded the Girnār state and offered the raja the choice between Islam and death. Protestations of loyalty were of no avail, and he was besieged in his fortress, Uparkot, and, when hard pressed there, fled to another stronghold in the mountains, where Mahmūd besieged him and compelled him, on December 4, 1470, to surrender. He accepted Islam and was entitled Khān Jahān. This raja is styled by Muslim historians ‘Mandalak,’ as though this were his personal name, but the word is evidently no other than *Maṇḍalika*, the Sanskrit term for a provincial governor³.
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² See *ante*, p. 305.
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³ See *ante*, pp. 305, 306.
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At about the time when the Arabs were overrunning Sind Bāpā, the Gahlot chieftain, captured from the Paramāras or Pawārs the fortress of Chitor, which remained the capital of this ancient tribe until it was captured by Akbar in 1567, when Udaipur became their principal seat. Their legends claim for them the credit of having opposed in arms both the Arab invader of Sind and the Turkish conqueror of the Punjab, and though it is possible that they marched, or sent contingents, against both, they were not sufficiently important to be mentioned in Muslim histories, and their own legends are not sufficient to establish any historical fact.
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During the interval of comparative peace between the raids of Mahmūd and the more systematic subjection of Northern India by Muhammad b. Sām 'the Chauhāns of Ajmer and the Gahlots of Chitor were alternately friends and foes.' The prince of Chitor, who had married a sister of Prithvī Rāj of Ajmer and Delhi, espoused his cause in his contest with Jayachandra of Kanauj for supremacy in Northern India. The Solankī in Gujarāt and the Pratihāra in Mandor¹ supported the claim of the Gaharwār, and, according to Rājput legend, both Kanauj and Gujarāt employed Muslim mercenaries whose presence in their armies was a source of useful information to Muhammad b. Sām. The Rājputs of Northern India richly deserved their fate.
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¹ In 26° 21' N. and 73° 2' E.
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The prince of Chitor, his son Kalyan Singh, and thirteen thousand of his troops are said to have been slain at the second battle of Tarāorī, and his widow, on hearing of his death, 'joined her lord through the flame.'
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North-west of Mewār, the region in which the Gahlots bore sway, lay the desert tract of Mārwār, at this time ruled by the Pratihāras, who were afterwards expelled by the Rāhtors, the tribe to which the present Mahārāja of Jodhpur belongs. West of Mārwār lies the present State of Jaisalmer, held by the Jādons, whose home, according to their own traditions, had in ancient times been Zābulistān, between Sīstān and Qandahār. Long before the rise of Islam they had been driven thence into the Punjab, where they domiciled for some time, and one branch of the tribe, the leader of which had retired in the eighth century into the desert of western Rājfontāna, acquired from an ancestor the name of Bhātī. A branch of the Bhātīs settled in the north of the modern State of Bikaner, and gave to the town now known as Hanūmāngarh² its original name, Bhatner, which in 1398 was taken by Tīmūr from a Bhātī chief named Dul Chand. This clan, as well as those branches of the Jādons which remained in the Punjab, accepted Islam. The main body of the tribe, however, travelling westward, had founded the fortress of Tanot, in the extreme north-western corner of what is now the Jaisalmer State. They afterwards made Ladorva their capital, and in 1156 Rāwal Jaisal founded the town of Jaisalmer. In Mārwār communities of Gohels, Chauhāns, and Pawārs disputed the authority of the Pratihāras or Parihārs.
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² In 29° 35' N. and 74° 20' E.
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The founder of the Rāthor dynasty of Mārwār was Siāhjī, whom the bards of the Rājputs represent as a prince of the Gaharwār house of Kunauj, who escaped when the rest of the family was slain, and, fleeing, established himself in Mārwār, where his tribe received the name of Rāthor. This they explain as a corruption of Rāshtrakūta, alleging that the Gaharwārs were Rāshtrakūtas from the Deccan, but there is little doubt that the whole story is fiction. The Gaharwār line was certainly extinguished, and there is no evidence that any escaped; there is no reason to believe that the Gaharwārs were Rāshtrakūtas; and an inscription dated A.D. 997, found in a town in the Jodhpur State, names four Rāthor Rajas who reigned there in the tenth century. It was probably from these local chieftains that Siāhjī was descended. He established himself, with a small number of followers, first in the north of Mārwār, where he received, as the price of assistance rendered to a Solankī chieftain, a bride with a dower. On a pilgrimage to Dwārkā he encountered and slew the brigand from whom he had delivered the Solankī. The exploit enhanced his reputation and, about 1212, he took up his abode in the fertile region watered by the Lūnī river, west of the Arāvallī Mountains. Here, by violence combined with treachery, he obeyed the Rājput maxim, 'Get land.' One Rājput chief and his followers he slew at a feast, another he defeated and killed in the field. The Brāhmans of Pālī besought his aid against the Mers and Mīnas who ravaged their lands. He drove off the marauders and, having settled at Pālī on land granted to him by the grateful Brāhmans, slew the leaders of the community and appropriated their lands. His son and successor, Asvatthāma, established his brother Soning in Īdar, a principality of the Dābhi Rājputs, by treacherously slaying the members of that clan while they were mourning for one of their princes; and Aja, another brother, invaded Okhamandal, in the extreme west of Kāthiāwār, and established himself there by murdering the Chāvada ruler of the country. His descendants bear the surname which he assumed, and are still known as Vādhel, 'the Slayers.'
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Rāīpāl, the fourth of the line, slew the Parihār chief of Mandor, and Chhada and Tida, the seventh and eighth, harassed the Jādons or Bhātīs of Jaisalmer and escaped chastisement only by giving the daughter of one of them in marriage to Rāwal Chāchakdeo I.¹
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¹ In 25° 47′ N. and 73° 19′ E.
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The Rāthors were as prolific as they were unscrupulous, and wide as the lands were which they had obtained by violence and fraud, they were now insufficient for their support. Chonda, their eleventh chief, after suffering many vicissitudes, was able to assemble a large army composed entirely of the various clans of his tribe and to attack the Parihār prince of Mandor. He was victorious, and planted his banner ‘on the ancient capital of Maru.’
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Chonda also added to his dominions the important city and district of Nāgaur, a Muslim stronghold which the dissolution of the Kingdom of Delhi, following Tīmūr’s invasion of India, enabled him to acquire, and it was at this city that he met his death.
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His fourth son, Aranyakanwal, had been betrothed to Karamdevī, daughter of Mānik Rāo of Aurint, chief of the Mohil Rājputs, but the damsel met and loved Sadhu, heir of Rāningdeo, the Bhātī lord of Pugal, a fief of Jaisalmer, and chose him as her husband. The slighted prince of Mandor attacked his rival, and the two met in single combat. Sadhu was slain, and Karamdevī, ‘at once a virgin, a wife, and a widow,’ sacrificed herself in the fire. Aranyakanwal died of his wounds, but Rāningdeo, not content with the death of his son’s rival, led a raid into Chonda’s territory to punish the Sānkhlas, whose prowess had discomfited the Bhātīs in the combat between Sadhu and Aranyakanwal. Having slain three hundred of his enemies Rāningdeo was returning with his spoil when he was overtaken by Chonda, who defeated and slew him.
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Rāningdeo’s two surviving sons, Tana and Mera, accepted Islam, as so many other Bhātīs had done, and thus obtained from Khizr Khān, then governor of Multān, a force with which to attack their enemy, but Kilan, son of the Rāwal of Jaisalmer, who joined them, ensured their success by guile. Professing a desire to end the feud, he offered a daughter in marriage to Chonda, but when the Rāthor came forth to receive his expected bride his suspicions were aroused by the appearance of the *cortège*, which consisted of an unusually large number of armed men, and he turned back towards Nāgaur. His enemies pursued him, and slew him at the gate of the town, ‘and friend and foe entering the city together a scene of general plunder commenced.’
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The death of Chonda occurred in 1408, and Nāgaur was then lost to the Rāthors. He was succeeded by his son Ranmall, who took advantage of the marriage of his daughter to Lakhā Rānā, the old chief of Chitor, to obtain a large grant of land from his son-in-law, to whose court he migrated, and was followed thither by his son, Jodha. An account of the growth of Rāthor influence at the court of Chitor, and of their expulsion from Mewār will be given in the history of that principality. Ranmall, with the aid of the forces of Mewār, captured the city of Ajmer by a stratagem, and thus temporarily added the ancient heritage of the Chauhāns to the domains of Mewār. He attempted, after the death of Lakhā Rānā, to usurp the throne of his infant son, but was slain in 1444 by Chonda, the old Rānā's firstborn, who expelled the Rāthors from Mewār. He was succeeded by Jodha, the eldest of his twenty-four sons, who in 1454 acquired Sojat, and in 1459 laid the foundation of Jodhpur, which has ever since remained the capital of the Rāthor State. On his death in 1488 he was succeeded by his second son, Sūja, or Sūrajmall, the eldest, Sāntal or Sātal, having been slain near Pokhāran, where he had established himself on the lands of the Bhātīs. Sūrajmall was the hero of the episode known as the Rape of the Virgins. In July, 1516, a predatory band of Muslims, probably from Ajmer, descended on the town of Pīpar during the celebration of the Tīj festival, and carried off a hundred and forty Rājput maidens. Sūrajmall, to whom news of the outrage was carried, at once mounted, pursued the marauders, and rescued the maidens, but lost his own life in the fray. He was succeeded by his grandson, Ganga, the son of his eldest son, Bhaga, who had predeceased him, but his title was contested by his uncle, Saga, Sūrajmall's third son, who was supported by Daulat Khān Lodī. Saga and his ally were, however, defeated, and the former was slain.
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