The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s9.21

c31.s9.21

The fact that one of the four clans, namely, the Parihār, undoubtedly is of the Gūjar stock, raises a strong presumption that the three others also are descended from Gurjaras or similar foreign immigrants. In this way the origin of some of the most notable of the Rājpūt clans is accounted for. The Gurjaras are believed to have entered India either along with or soon after the White Huns, and to have settled in large numbers in Rājputāna; but there is nothing to show what part of Asia they came from, or to what race they belonged.² The Pawār head-quarters were at Chandrāvatī and Achalgarh, near Mount Ābū, and in the seventh century the Parihārs ruled a large part of Rājputāna from Bhinmāl, some 50 miles to the north-west of Mount Ābū. About A. D. 800 Nāgabhata, king of the Gurjara country, conquered Kanauj on the Ganges, to which city he shifted his capital, and so founded the long line of Kanauj kings who ruled there until the advent of Mahmūd of Ghaznī at the beginning of A. D. 1019 (*ante*, p. 404). The discovery that the Rājas of Kanauj from 800 to 1018, some of whom enjoyed the rank of paramount sovereigns of Northern India, really were the descendants of 'barbarian' foreign immigrants into Rājputāna in the fifth or sixth century and cousins of the Gūjars, though recognized as high-class Rājpūts, is one of the most notable additions made to Indian historical knowledge for many years past. Although the history of the other Rājpūt clans of the north has not been worked out with equal fullness, a fair presumption arises that many of them were of similar origin. The truth seems to be that when a foreign clan or tribe became Hinduized the ruling families were readily recognized as Kshatriyas or Rājpūts, while the rank and file gradually lost their tribal organization, and developed into an Indian caste not regarded as aristocratic.