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The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s5: V

The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s5

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English

V

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*The kingdoms of Kanauj (Pañchāla), the Panjāb, Ajmēr, Delhi, and Gwālior; Muhammadan conquest of Hindūstan.*

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Before proceeding to discuss the history of the kingdom of Kanauj, it will be well to give some account of the famous capital city, which is now represented by a petty Muhammadan country town (N. lat. 27° 3′, E. long. 79° 56′) in the Farrukhābād District of the United Provinces. Kanauj was of high antiquity. It is mentioned in several passages of the *Mahābhārata*, and alluded to by Patanjali in the second century B.C. as a well-known place. It has been so completely destroyed that nothing beyond rubbish heaps remains to testify to the former existence of its gorgeous temples, monasteries, and palaces. Commentators usually take it for granted that Kanauj is mentioned twice, under the variant names of Kanagora and Kanogiza,¹ in Ptolemy's *Geography*, written about A.D. 140, but there is little reason to warrant the belief. The first certain mention of the city with any descriptive details is in the *Travels* of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hien, who visited Kanauj about A.D. 405, during the reign of Chandra-gupta II, Vikramāditya. His remark that the city possessed only two Buddhist monasteries of the Hīnayāna school and one *stūpa* suggests that it was not of much importance at the beginning of the fifth century.² Probably it grew under the patronage of the Gupta kings, but the great development of the city clearly was due to its selection by Harsha for his capital. When Hiuen Tsang stayed there, in 636 and 643, a marked change had occurred since Fa-hien's time. The later pilgrim, instead of two monasteries, found upwards of a hundred such institutions, crowded by more than 10,000 brethren of both the great schools. Hinduism flourished as well as Buddhism, and could show more than two hundred temples, with thousands of worshippers. The city, which was strongly fortified, then extended along the east bank of the Ganges for about 4 miles, and was adorned with lovely gardens and clear tanks. The inhabitants were well-to-do, including some families of great wealth; they dressed in silk, and were skilled in learning and the arts.¹

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¹ Bk. vii, ch. 1, sec. 52; ch. 2, sec. 22; transl. McCrindle, *Ind. Ant.*, xiii, 352, 380.

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² *Travels*, ch. xviii.

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¹ Watters, i, 340; Beal, i, 206.

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Although Kanauj had been captured several times by hostile armies during the ninth and tenth centuries, it recovered quickly from its wounds, and when Mahmūd appeared before its walls, at the end of A. D. 1018, was still a great and stately city, defended by seven distinct forts or fortifications and reputed to contain 10,000 temples. The Sultan destroyed the temples, but seems to have spared the city. The removal of the capital of Panchāla to Bārī must have greatly reduced the population and importance of Kanauj, although it revived to some extent under the rule of the Gaharwār Rājas in the twelfth century. The subjugation of Rāja Jaichand’s territory, including the city, in A. D. 1194 (A. H. 590), by Shihāb-ud-dīn, reduced it to insignificance for ever. Its final destruction was the work of Shēr Shah, who built a new town close by, called Shēr Sūr, to commemorate his victory over Humāyūn in 1540. The Muhammadan historian who chronicles the event observes that he could not find any satisfactory reason for the destruction of the old city, and that the act was very unpopular.²

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² Elliot, *Hist. of India*, iv, 419. The author, Abbās, wrote in the reign of Akbar, about 1580. For other particulars, see V. A. Smith, ‘A History of the City of Kanauj’ (*J. R. A. S.*, 1908, pp. 765–93). I was mistaken in asserting that the city was sacked by Shihāb-ud-dīn.

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Kanauj, although it twice attained the dignity of being the capital of Northern India, for the first time under Harsha in the seventh century, and for the second time under Mihira Bhoja and Mahendrapāla in the ninth and tenth centuries, was primarily the capital of the kingdom of Panchāla. According to the story told in the *Mahābhārata*, Northern Panchāla, with its capital Ahichchhatra, fell to the share of Drona, while Southern Panchāla, with its capital Kāmpilya, became the kingdom of Drupada. Ahichchhatra, the modern Rāmnagar in the Barēli (Bareilly) District, was still a considerable town when visited by Hiuen Tsang in the seventh century. Little is known about the history of Kāmpilya, apparently the modern Kampil in the Farrukhābād District.¹ Both the ancient capitals were thrown into obscurity by the rapid development of Kanauj under Harsha's rule, and after his time that city was the undisputed capital of Panchāla.

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¹ Cunningham, *Archaeol. S. Rep.*, xi, 11.

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Harsha's death, in A.D. 647, was followed by a period of disturbance and anarchy throughout his wide dominions. We do not know what happened to the kingdom of Panchāla immediately after the suppression of the usurper, about A. D. 650, by the Chinese ambassador with the help of his Nepalese and Tibetan allies, as related in the thirteenth chapter.

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After Harsha's death the earliest known king of Kanauj was Yasovarman, who sent an embassy to China in A.D. 731,² and nine or ten years later was dethroned and slain by Lalitāditya Muktāpīda of Kashmir.³ In the history of Sanskrit literature Yasovarman's name holds an honoured place as that of the patron of Bhavabhūti, the famous author of the *Mālatīmādhava*, and of Vākpatirāja, a less renowned author, who wrote in Prākrit. The next occupant of the throne of Kanauj apparently was Vajrāyudha, who, like his predecessor, suffered the fate of defeat and dethronement by Lalitāditya's son, Jayāpīda.⁴ Similar ill-luck attended his successor, Indrāyudha, who is known to have been reigning in A. D. 783, and was dethroned, about A. D. 810, by Dharmapāla, king of Bengal and Bihār. The eastern monarch, while probably insisting on a right to homage and tribute, did not keep the administration of Panchāla in his own hands, but entrusted it to Chakrāyudha, presumably a relative of the defeated rāja. The new ruler was consecrated with the consent of the kings of all the neighbouring states.¹ His fortune was no better than that of his predecessors. About a.d. 816 he was deprived of his throne by Nāgabhata, the ambitious king of the Gurjara-Pratīhāra kingdom in Rājputāna, the capital of which was at Bhilmāl.²

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² Stein, transl. *Rājatar.*, Bk. iv, v. 134, note, with reference to Pauthier.

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³ Stein, transl. *Rājatar.*, Bk. iv, vv. 133–46; Lévi and Chavannes, 'Itin. d'Oukong' (*J. A.*, 1895, p. 353). They fix the date as lying between A. D. 736 and 747.

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⁴ Konow and Lanman, *Karpūramañjarī*, iii, 5², p. 266; 'to the capital of Vajrāyudha, the king of Panchāla, to Kanauj.' Stein, transl. *Rājatar.*, Bk. iv, 471, records the defeat and dethronement of the king of Kanauj by Jayāpīḍa. The king of Kanauj apparently must have been Vajrāyudha.

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¹ a. d. 783, Jain *Harivamśa* in *Bomb. Gaz.* (1896), vol. i, pt. i, p. 197 note; Bhāgalpur copperplate (*Ind. Ant.*, xv, 304; xx, 188); Khālimpur copperplate (*Ep. Ind.*, iv, 252, note 3).

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² Gwālior inscription, *Nachr. d. k. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. Göttingen*, 1905, ‘Epigr. Notes,’ No. 17; *Archaeol. S., Annual Rep.*, 1903–4, p. 277. A. M. T. Jackson, ‘Bhinmāl,’ *Bom. Gaz.* (1896), vol. i, pt. i, App. See Watters, *On Yuan Chwang*, ii, 250; D. R. Bhandarkar, *A. S. W. I., Prog. Rep.*, 1907–8, pp. 36–41; and J. Wilson, *Indian Caste* (1877), vol. i, p. 109.

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Nāgabhata presumably transferred the head-quarters of his government to Kanauj, which certainly was the capital of his successors for many generations, and so again became for a considerable time the premier city of Northern India. During the reign of Nāgabhata the chronic warfare between the Gurjaras, descendants of foreign invaders, and the Rāshtrakūtas (Rāthōrs) of the Deccan, representing the indigenous ruling races, continued, and the southern king, Govinda III, claims to have won a victory over his northern rival early in the ninth century.³ Nothing particular is recorded about Nāgabhata’s successor, Rāmabhadra (Rāmadeva), who reigned from about a.d. 834 to 840.

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³ Unpublished inscription in possession of Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar (‘Gurjaras,’ p. 4, in *J. Bo. Br. As. Soc.*, vol. xx).

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The next king, Rāmabhadra’s son Mihira, usually known by his title Bhoja, enjoyed a long reign of about half a century (*c.* 840–90), and beyond question was a very powerful monarch, whose dominions may be called an ‘empire’ without exaggeration. They certainly included the Cis-Sutlaj districts of the Panjāb, most of Rājputāna, the greater part, if not the whole, of the present United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, and the Gwālior territory. The next two kings being known to have held the remote province of Surāshtra, or Kāthiāwār, in the extreme west, the possession of which implies control over Gujarāt and Mālava or Avanti, it is highly probable that these distant regions also were subject to the sway of Bhoja. On the east his dominions abutted on the realm of Devapāla, king of Bengal and Bihār, which he invaded successfully; on the north-west his boundary probably was the Sutlaj river; on the west the lost Hakrā or Wahindah river separated his territories from those of his enemies, the Muhammadan chiefs of Sind; on the south-west his powerful Rāshtrakūta rival, the ally of the Muhammadans, kept his armies continually on the alert; while on the south his next neighbour was the growing Chandēl kingdom of Jejākabhukti, the modern Bundelkhand, which probably acknowledged his suzerainty.¹ Bhoja liked to pose as an incarnation of Vishnu, and therefore assumed the title of *Ādi Varāha*, 'the primaeval boar,' one of the incarnations of the god. Base silver coins inscribed with this title are exceedingly common in Northern India, and by their abundance attest the long duration and wide extension of Bhoja's rule.² Unfortunately no Megasthenes or Bāna has left a record of the nature of his internal government, and it is impossible to compare the polity of Bhoja with that of his great forerunners.

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¹ These facts are collected from a series of inscriptions, Nos. 542, 544, 710 of Kielhorn's List (*Ep. Ind.*, vol. v, App.), and others. For the relations of the native powers with the Muhammadans see Al Masūdī in Elliot, i, 23–5; *Bom. Gaz.* (1896), vol. i, pt. i, pp. 506, 511, 526.

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² *Catal. Coins I. M.*, vol. i, pp. 233, 241. The coins are rude degradations of the Sassanian type, such as the Huns issued, and suggest a connexion between the Gurjara-Pratīhāras and the Huns.

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Bhoja's son and successor, Mahendrapāla (Mahendrāyudha) (*c.* A.D. 890–908) preserved unimpaired the extensive heritage received from his father, and ruled all Northern India, except the Panjāb and Indus valley, from the borders of Bihār (Magadha) to the shore of the Arabian sea. Inscriptions of his eighth and ninth years found at Gayā seem to prove that Magadha was included in the Parihār (Pratīhāra) dominions for some time. His teacher (*Guru*) was the celebrated poet Rājasekhara, author of the *Karpūra-mañjarī* play and other works, who continued to reside at the court of Mahendrapāla's younger son.³

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³ Konow and Lanman, *Karpūra mañjarī*, p. 178. But the remark (op. cit., p. 179) that Mahendrapāla of Mahodaya must be distinguished from the king of that name in the Dighwa-Dubauli copperplate has been proved to be erroneous. Rājasekhara also wrote a treatise on the art of poetry (*Kāvyamīmāmsa*), published in the Gaekwar's Oriental Series.

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The throne was occupied for two or three years by Bhoja II, elder son of Mahendrapāla, who died early, and was succeeded by his half-brother, Mahīpāla (*c.* A. D. 910–40).¹ The beginning of the decline and fall of the empire of Kanauj dates from his reign. In A. D. 916 the armies of the Rāshtrakūta king, Indra III, once more captured Kanauj, and gave a severe blow to the power of the Pratihāra dynasty.² Surāshtra, which was still subject to Mahīpāla in 914,³ probably was then lost along with other remote provinces, in consequence of the successes gained by the southern monarch. Indra III not being in a position to hold Kanauj, Mahīpāla recovered his capital with the aid of the Chandēl king, and probably other allies.⁴

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¹ Inscription No. 544 of Kielhorn's *List*.

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² Cambay plates (*Ep. Ind.* vii, 30, 43).

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³ Inscription No. 353 in Kielhorn's *List*.

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⁴ *Ep. Ind.*, i, 121.

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The waning power of Kanauj and the waxing strength of Jejākabhukti are shown by the incident that king Devapāla of Kanauj (*c.* 940–55) was obliged to surrender a much-prized image of Vishnu to the Chandēl king, Yasovarman, who enshrined it in one of the finest temples at Khajurāho.⁵ Yasovarman had established his power by the occupation of the strong fortress of Kālanjar, and no doubt became absolutely independent of Kanauj. In the reign of Dhanga, the successor of Yasovarman, the Jumna is known to have formed the boundary between the territories of Panchāla and those of Jejākabhukti.

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⁵ *Ibid.*, 134.

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Devapāla was succeeded by his brother, Vijayapāla (*c.* A. D. 960–90),⁶ whose reign is marked by the loss of Gwālior, the ancient possession of his house, which was captured by a Kachchhwāha (Kachchhapaghāta) chief named Vajradāman,¹ the founder of a local dynasty which held the fortress until A.D. 1128. The establishment of the Solankī (Chaulukya) kingdom of Anhilwāra in Gujarāt by Mūlarāja, about the middle of the tenth century, shows that the king of Kanauj no longer had any concern with Western India.² The Gwālior chieftain became a feudatory of the Chandēl monarchy, which, under Dhanga (*c.* 1000–1050), evidently was stronger than its rival of Kanauj.

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⁶ A stone inscription at Bayana of A. D. 955 records the erection of a temple by a queen named Chitralekha during the reign of a Mahārājādhirājā Mahīpāla, who appears to have belonged to the Kanauj dynasty. If this is so, this Mahīpāla must have succeeded Devapāla and have reigned for a very brief time, as another inscription of A. D. 960 shows that Vijayapāla had gained the throne four or five years after the date of the Bayana inscription (*Prog. Rep. A. S. W. Circle*, 1919, p. 43).

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¹ Inscription No. 47 of Kielhorn's *List*.

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² Three inscriptions of Mūlarāja, ranging in date from Aug. A. D. 974 to Jan. 995, are known. According to the Gujarāt chronicles his reign extended from A. D. 942 to 997. He is described as the son of Rāji, king of Kanauj. Rāji is probably one of the many designations of king Mahīpāla, who reigned from about A. D. 910 to about 940. Mūlarāja presumably was his viceroy, and finding an opportunity, threw off his allegiance. See *Ep. Ind.*, x, 76, 77, and *J. R. A. S.*, 1909, pp. 269–72. The date, A. D. 961, which I formerly assigned for the establishment of the Anhilwāra kingdom, does not seem to be right. Mūlarāja was killed by a Chauhān Rāja, named Vigraharāja (II), who was alive in A. D. 973 (*J. R. A. S.*, 1913, pp. 266, 267, 269).

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At this period the politics of the Hindu Rājpūt states of Northern India became complicated by the intrusion of Muhammadan invaders. The Arab conquest of Sind, in A.D. 712, did not seriously affect the kingdoms of the interior. The Arabs maintained friendly relations on the whole with their powerful Rāshtrakūta neighbours on the south, and their attacks on the dominions of the Gurjara kings of Rājputāna and Kanauj do not seem ever to have exceeded the proportions of frontier raids. But now the armies of Islam began to appear in more formidable fashion through the north-western passes, the gates which had so often admitted the enemies of India.

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In those days a large kingdom comprising the upper valley of the Indus and most of the Panjāb to the north of Sind, extending westward to the mountains and eastward to the Hakrā river, was governed by a Rāja named Jaipāl, whose capital was at Bathindah (Bhatinda), the Tabarhind of Muhammadan histories, now in the Patiālā State, and for many centuries an important fortress on the military road connecting Mūltān with India proper.³ Sabuktigīn, the Amīr of Ghaznī, made his first raid into Indian territory in A. D. 986–7 (A. H. 376). Two years later Jaipāl retaliated by an invasion of the Amīr's territory, but, being defeated, was compelled to accept a treaty binding him to pay a large sum in cash, and to surrender a number of elephants and four fortresses to the west of the Indus. Jaipāl having broken the compact, Sabuktigīn punished him by the devastation of the frontier and the annexation of Lamghān (Jalālābād). Soon afterwards (*c.* A. D. 991) Jaipāl made a final effort to save his country by organizing a great confederacy of Hindu princes, including Ganda, the Chandēl king, Rājyapāla, then the king of Kanauj, and others. The vast host thus collected was disastrously defeated in or near the Kurram (Kurmah) valley, and Peshāwar was occupied by the Muhammadans. Jaipāl, who was again defeated in November, 1001, by Sultan Mahmūd, committed suicide, and was succeeded by his son, Anandpāl,¹ who, like his father, joined a confederacy of the Hindu powers under the supreme command of Vīsaladeva, the Chauhān Rājā of Ajmēr. In spite of assistance from the powerful Khokhar tribe of the Panjāb, the Hindus again sustained a heavy defeat.

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³ *J. Panjab Hist. Soc.*, ii, p. 109, and iii, p. 35.

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¹ This summary statement, so far as it differs from current accounts, rests upon the authority of Raverty, *Notes on Afghanistan*, p. 320. Alberūnī (*India*, transl. Sachau, i, 135) tells us that Jaipāl's son, 'Shāh Ānandapāla, who ruled in our time,' had as teacher a grammarian named Ugrabhūti, whose book was made fashionable in Kashmīr by liberal donations from the royal pupils to the pundits.

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At Kanauj, Vijayapāla had been succeeded by his son Rājyapāla, who took his share in opposing the foreign invader. A few years later (A. D. 997) the crown of Sabuktigīn descended, after a short interval of dispute, to his son, the famous Sultan Mahmūd, who made it the business of his life to harry the idolaters of India, and carry off their property to Ghaznī. He is computed to have made no less than seventeen expeditions into India. It was his custom to leave his capital in October, and then three months' steady marching brought him into the richest provinces of the interior. Early in January, A. D. 1019, he appeared before Kanauj. Rājyapāla made no serious attempt to defend his capital, and the seven forts which guarded it all fell into Mahmūd's hands in a single day. The conqueror plundered the forts but seems to have spared the city, and quickly returned to Ghaznī laden with booty. Rājyapāla made the best terms that he could obtain, abandoned Kanauj, and retired to Bārī on the other side of the Ganges.¹

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¹ The name Rājyapāla is obtained from the Jhūsi copperplate (*Ind. Ant.*, xviii, 34, Kielhorn's *List*, No. 60) and the Dūbkund inscription (*Ep. Ind.*, ii, 235). Hitherto it has been misread as 'Rāi Jaipāl' in Al Utbi (Elliot, ii, 45), with the result that much confusion has occurred. Elliot (ibid., pp. 425–7, 461) mixes up the dynasty of Bathindah with that of the Shāhiyas of Ohind, commonly called 'of Kābul', and so renders the whole story unintelligible. The inscriptions were not known when he wrote, and all subsequent writers have perpetuated his error. The version of the *Tabakāt-i-Akbari* is given by Elliot (ibid., 460). The retirement to Bārī is recorded by Alberūnī and Rashīd-ud-dīn. The subject is discussed more fully in my second paper on 'The Gurjaras of Rājputāna and Kanauj' (*J. R. A. S.*, 1909, pp. 276–81).

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The pusillanimous submission of Rājyapāla incensed his Hindu allies, who felt that he had betrayed their cause. His fault was sternly punished by an army under the command of Vidhyādhara, heir-apparent of the Chandēl king, Ganda, supported by the forces of his feudatory, the chief of Gwālior, which attacked Kanauj in the spring or summer of A.D. 1019, soon after the departure of Sultan Mahmūd, and slew Rājyapāla, whose diminished dominions passed under the rule of Trilochanapāla. The Sultan was furious when he heard of the punishment inflicted on a prince whom he regarded as a vassal, and in the autumn of the same year (A.H. 410) started again from Ghaznī to take vengeance on the Hindu chiefs. Early in A.D. 1020 he captured Bārī, the new Pratihāra capital, without much difficulty, and then advanced into the Chandēl territory, where Ganda had assembled an apparently formidable force to oppose him. But the heart of the Chandēl king failed him, and, like Rājyapāla, he fled from the field without giving battle. His camp, munitions, and elephants were left a prey to the Sultan, who returned as usual to Ghaznī with heaps of spoil.²

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² The history is obtained from the Chandēl inscriptions in *Ep. Ind.*, i, 219; ii, 235, combined with the Muhammadan accounts in Elliot, vol. ii, pp. 464–7. The dates are often stated erroneously by English authors.

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Nothing is known about Trilochanapāla except that he ineffectually resisted Mahmūd's passage of the Jumna at the end of 1019 or the beginning of 1020, and made the grant of a village near Allāhābād in A. D. 1027.¹ A Rāja named Yasaḥpāla, who is mentioned in an inscription of A.D. 1036, may have been his immediate successor.² Other obscure chiefs continued to be recognized as Rājas of Kanauj, and governed a considerable territory, no doubt in subordination to Muhammadan kings, even after the reduction of Kanauj in 1194. The names of some of these chiefs have been preserved. They seem to have resided at Zafarābād near Jaunpur. But these later chiefs did not belong to the old Gurjara-Pratīhāra dynasty, which disappeared utterly. Kanauj had been conquered and occupied, a little before A.D. 1090, by a Rāja of the Gaharwār clan, named Chandradeva, who established his authority certainly over Benares and Ajodhyā, and perhaps over the Delhi territory.³ The city of Delhi had been founded about a century earlier, in A.D. 993–4.⁴

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¹ Inscription No. 60 of Kielhorn's *List*. Cunningham (*Coins of Med. India*, p. 61) confounds Trilochanapāla of Kanauj with the prince of the same name who was the last of the Shāhiyas of Ohind.

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² Colebrooke, *Essays*, ii, 246.

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³ Inscription No. 75 of Kielhorn's *List*; *Ind. Ant.*, xviii, 13. Copperplate grant of Rāja Chandradeva, dated A. D. 1090 (1148 v. E.), found at Chandrāvatī in Benares District, and now in Lucknow Museum (*A. S. Prog. Rep.*, *N. Circle*, 1907–8, pp. 21, 39). Another grant of the same Rāja was executed two years later at Ajodhyā (*Lucknow Prov. Mus. Rep.*, 1911–12, p. 3), as was a third grant dated A. D. 1156.

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⁴ *Notes on Afghanistan*, p. 320. Raverty informed me that his authority for the date was the *Zain-ul-Akbar* by Abū S'aīd-i-Abū-l Hakk, who wrote his history in the time of Sultan Mahmūd and his sons, not many years after the date stated. Another more modern writer dates the foundation in the year 440 of Bikramajit, which of course is absurd; but if the figures are taken as referring to the Harsha era, the date would be A. D. 1045, about the time of Ānangapāla. Tieffenthaler was told that Delhi had been founded by a Tomar Rāja named Rāsena in A. H. 307 = A. D. 919–20 (*Géogr. de l'Indoustan*, Fr. transl., Berlin, 1791, p. 125). In certain inscriptions and popular verses Delhi is called Yoginīpura (*Ind. Ant.*, 1912, p. 86, and *Ep. Ind.*, xii, 45).

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The Gaharwār dynasty, subsequently known as Rāthōr,⁵ thus founded by Chandradeva, lasted until the subjugation of the Kanauj kingdom by Shihāb-ud-dīn, in A. D. 1194 (A. H. 590). Govindachandra, grandson of Chandradeva, enjoyed a long reign, which included the years A. D. 1104 and 1155. His numerous land grants and widely distributed coins prove that he succeeded to a large extent in restoring the glories of Kanauj, and in making himself a power of considerable importance.¹

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⁵ The 'Rāthōr dynasty of Kanauj' commonly mentioned in books is a myth. The Rājas belonged to the Gahaḍavāla or Gaharwār clan, as is expressly affirmed in the Basāhi copperplate grant of Govindachandra dated 1161 v. E. = A. D. 1104 (No. 77 of *List*; *Ind. Ant.*, xiv, 103), and recognized by the traditions of the Gautam clan (*J. A. S. B.*, part i, vol. liv (1885), p. 160). The appellation 'Rāthōr' applied to the Kanauj Rājas is due solely to the claim made by the 'Rāṭhōr' chiefs of Jodhpur to be descended from Rāja Jaichand (Jayachchandra, *Ind. Ant.*, xiv, 98–101) through a boy who escaped massacre. Stories of this kind are commonplaces of family traditions and historically worthless. No Tomara dynasty of Kanauj ever existed.

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¹ Nearly sixty grants made by the dynasty are known, most of which belong to Govindachandra's reign. One of Govindachandra's grants from Oudh, dated 1186 (= 1129 A. D.), mentions *turushka danda*, a special tax levied to meet the cost of resisting the Muhammadan invasion (*Lucknow Museum Report*, 1914–15, pp. 4, 10). For the coins, see *Catal. Coins I. M.*, vol. i, pp. 257, 260.

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The grandson of Govindachandra was Jayachchandra, renowned in the popular Hindī poems and tales of Northern India as Rāja Jaichand, whose daughter was carried off by the gallant Rāi Pithōra of Ajmēr. He was known to the Muhammadan historian as the king of Benares, which, perhaps, may be regarded as having been his capital, and was reputed the greatest king in India. It is alleged that his territory extended from the borders of China to the province of Mālwa, and from the sea to within ten days' journey of Lahore, but it is difficult to believe that it can have been really so extensive. Shihāb-ud-dīn met him at Chandāwar in the Etawah District near the Jumna, and having defeated his huge host with immense slaughter, in which the Rāja was included, passed on to Benares, which he plundered, carrying off the treasure on 1,400 camels.² Thus ends the story of the independent kingdom of Kanauj. When the rājas of the Gaharwār line died out, their place was taken by chiefs of the Chandēl clan from Mahoba, who became the local rulers of Kanauj for eight generations.³

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² *Kāmilu-t-Tawārīkh*, Elliot, ii, 251.

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³ *J. A. S. B.*, part i, vol. i (1881), pp. 48, 49.

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Inscriptions record the genealogy of a long line of Rājpūt kings belonging to the Chauhān (Chāhumāna) clan who governed the principality of Sāmbhar (Sākambharī) in Rājputāna, to which Ajmēr was attached. Only two of these chiefs demand notice. Vigraha-rāja, in the middle of the twelfth century, extended his ancestral dominions considerably, and is erroneously alleged to have conquered Delhi from a chief of the Tomara clan. That chief was a descendant of Ānangapāla, who, a century earlier, had built the Red Fort, where the Kutb mosque now stands, and thus given permanence to the city, which had been founded in A. D. 993-4.¹ Europeans are so accustomed to associate the name of Delhi with the sovereignty of India that they do not easily realize the fact that Delhi is among the most modern of the great Indian cities. Vague legends, it is true, irradiate the lands along the bank of the Jumna near the village of Indarpat with the traditional glories of the prehistoric Indraprastha, and these stories may or may not have some substantial basis. But, as an historical city, Delhi dates only from the time of Ānangapāla in the middle of the eleventh century. The celebrated iron pillar, on which the eulogy of a powerful king named Chandra, who lived in the fourth century, is incised, was removed by the Tomara chief from its original position, probably at Mathurā, and set up in A. D. 1052 as an adjunct to a group of temples, from the materials of which the Muhammadans afterwards constructed the great mosque.²

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¹ For the genealogy, see Kielhorn in *Ep. Ind.*, viii, 'Supplement to Northern List,' p. 13. Ajmēr was founded about A. D. 1100 by Ajayadeva Chauhān. Coins of him and his queen, Somaladevi, are extant (*Ind. Ant.*, 1912, p. 209).

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² The traditional story of the foundation of Delhi by an imaginary Ānangapāla I is fictitious. The earliest remains, excepting the transported iron pillar, date from the eleventh century (*J. R. A. S.*, 1897, p. 13). For the Red Fort (Lālkot), see Cunningham, *Reports*, i, 153. For Indarpat, see Carr Stephens, *Archaeology of Delhi* (8vo ed., 1876), pp. 1-8; Fanshawe, *Delhi Past and Present* (1902), p. 228. There was no Tomara dynasty of Kanauj. Cunningham's argument (*Reports*, i, 150) rests mainly on the misreading of Rāi Jaipāl for Rājyapāl in Al Utbī.

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Vigraha-rāja (IV) was a man of considerable distinction. Some years ago, during the progress of repairs executed at the principal mosque of Ajmēr, six slabs of polished black marble were discovered bearing inscriptions in Sanskrit and Prākrit, which on examination proved to be large portions of two unknown dramas. One of these, the *Lalita-Vigraharāja-nāṭaka*, was composed in honour of Vigraha-rāja, while the other, the *Harakali-nāṭaka*, professes to be the composition of that prince himself.¹

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¹ Kielhorn, *Bruchstücke indischer Schauspiele in Inschriften zu Ajmere* (Berlin, 1901).

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His nephew was Prithivī-rāja, Prithīrāj, or Rāi Pithōra, lord of Sāmbhar and Ajmēr, famous in song and story as a chivalrous lover and doughty champion. His fame as a bold lover rests upon his daring abduction of the not unwilling daughter of Jaichand, the Gaharwār Rāja of Kanauj, which occurred in or about a. d. 1175. His reputation as a general is securely founded upon his defeat of the Chandēl Rāja, Parmāl, and the capture of Mahoba in 1182, as well as upon gallant resistance to the flood of Muhammadan invasion. Indeed, Rāi Pithōra may be described with justice as the popular hero of Northern India, and his exploits in love and war are the subject of rude epics and bardic lays to this day.²

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² The best-known work dealing with Prithīrāj is the *Chand-Rāisā*, or *Prithīrāj-Rāisā*, a Hindī epic, extremely popular in the United Provinces. The authorship is attributed to Chand Bardāi, who was the court poet of his hero and patron. A descendant of the poet still lives in the Jodhpur State on the income of the lands granted to his ancestor by Prithīrāj. He has the MS. of the original poem, consisting of only 5,000 verses. Additions were made by descendants until Akbar's time, enlarging the work to 125,000 verses. Copies of part of the original have been made, and it is hoped that the whole may be published (*J. & Proc. A. S. B.*, Feb. 1911, *Ann. Rep.*, p. xxx). The supposed chronological errors in the *Rāisā* are explained by the discovery that the author used the Ananda variety of the Vikrama era, equivalent roughly to a. d. 33, and so 90–1 years later than the ordinary Sananda Vikrama era of 58–57 b.c. (*J. R. A. S.*, 1906, p. 500). Chand gives the date of Prithīrāj's birth as 1115 of *ananda*, which means '*nanda-rahit*', devoid of nine, 'nine' being one of the sub-meanings of *nanda*. *A-nanda* therefore means (100–9) 91 or 90. Possibly the high-caste Rājpūts declined to recognize the low-caste Nanda kings, to whose dynasty they may have assigned a period of 91 years. Another explanation is that Prithīrāj founded an era of his own on account of his jealousy of Jaichand, who claimed descent from Vikrama, dating the era perhaps from the time of Prithīrāj's ancestor Chandra Deva (Syam Sundar Das in his *Annual Report on the Search for Hindi MSS. for 1900*, pp. 5–10). See also Hoernle in *J. R. A. S.*, 1906, p. 500. Both eras were current in Rājputāna in the twelfth century. The Sanskrit work from Kashmir, entitled *Prithivīrāja vijaya*, discovered and made known by Bühler, is of higher authority and great historical value. It was composed between a. d. 1178 and 1200, probably later than 1191. Its genealogical statements are

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The dread inspired by the victorious Musalman army under the command of Shihāb-ud-dīn or Muhammad of Ghōr, who was now undisputed master of the greater part of the Panjāb, constrained the jarring states of Northern India to lay aside their quarrels and combine for a moment against the foreign foe. At first fortune smiled on the Indians; and in A.D. 1191 (A. H. 587) Prithivī-rāja succeeded in inflicting a severe defeat upon the invaders at Tarāīn or Talāwarī between Thānēsar and Karnāl, which forced them to retire beyond the Indus. A year later, in A. D. 1192 (A. H. 588), the Sultan, having returned with a fresh force, again encountered on the same field Prithivī-rāja, who was at the head of an immense host, swollen by contingents from numerous confederate princes. A vigorous charge by twelve thousand well-armed Musalman horsemen repeated the lesson given by Alexander long ages before, and demonstrated the inability of a mob of Indian militia to stand the onset of trained cavalry. Prithivī-rāja, having been taken prisoner, was executed in cold blood, and the wretched inhabitants of his capital Ajmēr were either put to the sword or sold into slavery.¹

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¹ Raverty, transl. *Tabakāt-i-Nāṣirī*, pp. 456, 459, 467, 468, 485, 486, and App. A. Most English books give the dates inaccurately and miscall the battle-field Tiraurī. A. H. 587, 588, and 589, are almost exactly equivalent to the years A. D. 1191–3, extending from 29th January, 1191, to 26th December, 1193. A Hindu tale that Pṛithivirāja was taken to Ghaznī, where he shot the Sultan, and was then cut to pieces, is false. Sultan Shihāb-ud-dīn was assassinated at the halting-place of ‘Damyek’, in the year 602 (a. d. 1205–6), by a fanatic of the Mulāḥidah sect. The exact spot, the scene of the surprise, has been visited by Mr. G. P. Tate and identified at Dhamiāk in the Jhelum District, Panjāb (*J. R. A. S.*, 1909, p. 168). The phrase attributed to Firishtah by his translator that ‘this prodigious army, once shaken, like a great building tottered to its fall, &c.’, is not in the Persian.

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supported by the inscriptions. The correct lineage of Prithivī-rāja according to the *Pṛithivīrāja-vijaya* is:---

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Chand's statement that Rāi Pithōra (Pṛithirāj) was the son of the daughter of Ānangapāla, king of Delhi, is doubtful. The single imperfect MS. of the *Pṛithivīrāja vijaya* has been described and summarized by Har Bilas Sarda in *J. R. A. S.*, 1913, pp. 259–81, with references to earlier notices of the work. He uses the spelling *Pṛithvī*. The truth of the assertion that Vigraha-rāja wrested Delhi from the Tomaras is extremely doubtful (Bühler, *Proc. A. S. B.*, 1893, p. 94). It seems to be contradicted by verse 22 of the Bijolī inscription (*J. A. S. B.*, part i, vol. lv (1886), p. 31).

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In a. d. 1193 (a. h. 589), Delhi fell. Kanauj does not seem to have been molested, but must have come under the control of the invaders. Benares, the holy citadel of Hinduism, in a. d. 1194 became the prize of the victors, who could now feel confident that the final triumph of the arms of Islam over ‘the land of the Brahmans’ was assured. The surrender of Gwālior in 1196, the capture in 1197 of Anhilwāra the capital of Gujarāt, and the capitulation of Kālanjar in 1203 completed the reduction of Upper India, and when Shihāb-ud-dīn died in a. d. 1205–6 (a. h. 602), he—

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‘Held, in different degrees of subjection, the whole of Hindustan Proper, except Mālwā and some contiguous districts. Sind and Bengal were either entirely subdued, or in rapid course of reduction. On Gujarāt he had no hold, except what is implied in the possession of the capital (Anhilwāra or Nahrwāla). Much of Hindustan was immediately under his officers, and the rest under dependent or at least tributary princes. The desert and some of the mountains were left independent from neglect’.¹

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¹ Elphinstone, *Hist. of India*, 5th ed., p. 338. Shihāb-ud-dīn is designated by an inconvenient variety of names and titles, as Muḥammad the son of Sām, Muḥammad Ghorī, or Muizz-ud-dīn. Similarly, his elder brother and colleague, who was also named Muḥammad, is known as both Shams-ud-dīn and Ghiyās-ud-dunyā wa ud-dīn (Raverty, *J. A. S. B.*, vol. xlv, part 1, p. 328). The article cited fully justifies the chronology adopted in the text. Rājā Jaichand was defeated and killed at Chandāwar in the Etāwah District near the Jumna. Mr. Banerji rightly points out that there is no evidence that Kanauj was then sacked. The Musalman army passed on to Benares. But the Kanauj territory, including the city, must have then passed under Muhammadan control. The army probably did not visit Kanauj, which is on the Ganges. The city certainly was taken by Iltutmish (Altamsh) in or about a. d. 1226 (*J. & Proc. A. S. B.*, 1911, pp. 761, 765, 769). It would seem that in 1194 Kanauj was treated as an unimportant place which could be left aside without danger.

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An important consequence of the Muslim conquest of Kanauj was the migration of the bulk of the Gaharwār clan to the deserts of Mārwār in Rājputāna, where they settled and became known as Rāthōrs. The state so founded, now generally designated by the name of its capital, Jodhpur, is one of the most important principalities of Rājputāna.¹ Similar clan movements, necessitated by the pressure of Muhammadan armies, which were frequent at this period, account to a large extent for the existing distribution of the Rājpūt clans.

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¹ *Imp. Gaz.*, xiv, 183. Real Rāthōrs had been settled at Bālī in Mārwār as early as the tenth century (ibid., vi, 287).

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