The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s9.26

c31.s9.26

The unceasing wars of the mediaeval period become a little more intelligible and interesting when they are regarded as being in large part a secular struggle between the foreign Rājpūts of the north and the indigenous Rājpūts of the south. Of course, this arrangement of the sides did not always hold good, and powers normally at feud sometimes made friends and contracted alliances one with the other, or all parties momentarily combined against the Muhammadans. But I think it is true that, as a general rule, the Rājpūts formed by the social promotion of ‘aborigines’ were inimical to the Rājpūts descended from ‘barbarian’ immigrants. In the northern group the clans most conspicuous in the historical field are the Chauhāns, Parihārs, Tomaras, and Pawārs; in the southern group the principal clans are the Chandēls, Kalachuris, or Haihayas, Gaharwārs, and Rāshtrakūtas. The origin of the Solankis or Chalukyas (Chaulukya, &c.) is disputed. They claim to come from Oudh, but it is more probable that they are really of foreign origin, like the three other clans with which they are associated in the ‘fire-pit’ story.²