The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.s2.84

v3.c29.s2.84

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.