Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c17.s5.t2: Thirty-Five Sakha of the Pramaras
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c17.s5.t2
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Thirty-Five Sakha of the Pramaras
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*Mori [or Maurya].*—Of which was Chandragupta, and the princes of Chitor prior to the Guhilot.
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*Sodha.*—Sogdoi of Alexander, the princes of Dhat in the Indian desert.
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*Sankhla.*—Chiefs of Pugal, and in Marwar.
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*Khair.*—Capital Khairalu.
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*Umra and Sumra.*—Anciently in the desert, now Muhammadans.
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*Vihal, or Bihal.*—Princes of Chandravati.
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*Mepawat.*—Present chief of Bijolia in Mewar.
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*Balhar.*—Northern desert.
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*Kaba.*—Celebrated in Saurashtra in ancient times, a few yet in Sirohi.
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*Umata.*—The princes of Umatwara in Malwa, there established for twelve generations. Umatwara is the largest tract left to the Pramaras. Since the war in 1817, being under the British interference, they cannot be called independent.
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| *Rehar* | . | . |
| *Dhunda* | . | . |
| *Sorathia* | . | . |
| *Harer*² | . | . |
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² [For a different list see *Census Report Rajputana*, 1911, i. 255.]
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Besides others unknown; as Chaonda, Khejar, Sagra, Barkota, Puni, Sampal, Bhiba, Kalpusar, Kalmoh, Kohila, Papa, Kahoria, Dhand, Deba, Barhar, Jipra, Posra, Dhunta, Rikamva, and Taika. Many of these are proselytes to Islamism, and several beyond the Indus [94].
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Chahuman or Chauhan.—On this race so much has been said elsewhere,¹ that it would be superfluous to give more than a rapid sketch of them here.
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¹ See *Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society*, vol. i. p. 133, ‘Comments on a Sanskrit Inscription.’
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This is the most valiant of the Agnikulas, and it may be asserted not of them only, but of the whole Rajput race. Actions may be recorded of the greater part of each of the Chhattis-kula, which would yield to none in the ample and varied pages of history; and though the ‘Talwar Rathoran’ would be ready to contest the point, impartial decision, with a knowledge of their respective merits, must assign to the Chauhan the van in the long career of arms.
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Its branches (sakha) have maintained all the vigour of the original stem; and the Haras, the Khichis, the Deoras, the Sonigiras, and others of the twenty-four, have their names immortalised in the song of the bard.
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The derivation of Chauhan is coeval with his fabulous birth: ‘the four-handed warrior’ (*Chatur-bhuja Chatur-bahu Vira*). All failed when sent against the demons, but the Chauhan, the last creation of the Brahmans to fight their battles against infidelity.
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A short extract may be acceptable from the original respecting the birth of the Chauhan, to guard the rites of our Indian Jove on this Olympus, the sacred Abu: “the Guru of mountains, like Sumer or Kailas, which Achaleswara made his abode. Fast but one day on its summit, and your sins will be forgiven; reside there for a year, and you may become the preceptor of mankind.”
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The Agnikunda Fire-pit.—Notwithstanding the sanctity of Abu, and the little temptation to disturb the anchorites of Bal, “the Munis, who passed their time in devotion, whom desire never approached, who drew support from the cow, from roots, fruits, and flowers,” yet did the Daityas, envying their felicity, render the sacrifice impure, and stop in transit the share of the gods. “The Brahmans dug the pit for burnt-sacrifice to the south-west (nairrit); but the demons¹ raised storms which darkened the air and filled it with clouds of sand, showering ordure, blood, bones and flesh, with every impurity, on their rites. Their penance was of no avail.”
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¹ Asura-Daitya, which Titans were either the aboriginal Bhils or the Scythic hordes.
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Again they kindled the sacred fire; and the priests, assembling round the Agnikunda,² prayed for aid to Mahadeo [95]. “From the fire-fountain a figure issued forth, but he had not a warrior’s mien. The Brahmans placed him as guardian of the gate, and thence his name, Prithivi-dwara.³ A second issued forth, and being formed in the palm (challu) of the hand was named Chalukya. A third appeared and was named Pramara.⁴ He had the blessing of the Rishis, and with the others went against the demons, but they did not prevail. Again Vasishtha,⁵ seated on the lotus, prepared incantations; again he called the gods to aid: and, as he poured forth the libation, a figure arose, lofty in stature, of elevated front, hair like jet, eyes rolling, breast expanded, fierce, terrific, clad in armour, quiver filled, a bow in one hand and a brand in the other, quadriform (Chaturanga),⁶ whence his name, Chauhan.
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² I have visited this classic spot in Hindu mythology. An image of Adipal (the ‘first-created’), in marble, still adorns its embankment, and is a piece of very fine sculpture. It was too sacred a relic to remove.
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³ ‘Portal or door (dwar) of the earth’; contracted to Prithihara and Parihara.
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⁴ ‘The first striker.’
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⁵ [In the Hāra version of the legend the presiding priest is Visvāmitra.]
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⁶ Chatur; anga, ‘body’ [chaturbāhu].
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“Vasishtha prayed that his hope⁷ might be at length fulfilled, as the Chauhan was despatched against the demons. Sakti-devi⁸ on her lion, armed with the trident, descended, and bestowed her blessing on the Chauhan, and as Asapurna, or Kalika, promised always to hear his prayer. He went against the demons; their leaders he slew. The rest fled, nor halted till they reached the depths of hell. Anhal slew the demons. The Brahmans were made happy; and of his race was Prithwiraja.”⁹
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⁷ Asa, ‘hope,’ purna, to ‘fulfil’; whence the tutelary goddess of the Chauhan race, Asapurna.
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⁸ The goddess of energy (Sakti).
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⁹ [Cunningham points out that in the original story only the Chauhan was created from the fire-pit, the reference to other clans being a later addition (ASR, ii. 255).]
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The genealogical tree of the Chauhans exhibits thirty-nine princes, from Anhal, the first created Chauhan, to Prithwiraja, the last of the Hindu emperors of India.¹ But whether the chain is entire we cannot say. The inference is decidedly against its being so; for this creation or regeneration is assigned to an age centuries anterior to Vikramaditya: and we may safely state these converts to be of the Takshak race, invaders of India at a very early period.
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¹ Born in S. 1215, or A.D. 1159. [Anhala or Agnipāla is here the head of the Chauhān line; but a different list appears in the Hammīra Mahākāvya of Nayachhandra Sūri (IA, viii. 55 ff.).]
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Ajaipal is a name celebrated in the Chauhan chronicles, as the founder of the fortress of Ajmer, one of the earliest establishments of Chauhan power.²
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² [Ajmer is commonly said to have been founded by Rāja Aja, A.D. 145. It was founded by Ajayadeva Chauhān about A.D. 1100 (IA, xxv. 162 f.).]
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Sambhar,³ on the banks of the extensive salt lake of the same name, was probably anterior to Ajmer, and yielded an epithet to the princes of this race, who [96] were styled Sambhari Rao. These continued to be the most important places of Chauhan power, until the translation of Prithwiraja to the imperial throne of Delhi threw a parting halo of splendour over the last of its independent kings. There were several princes whose actions emblazon the history of the Chauhans. Of these was Manika Rae, who first opposed the progress of the Muhammadan arms. Even the history of the conquerors records that the most obstinate opposition which the arms of Mahmud of Ghazni encountered was from the prince of Ajmer,⁴ who forced him to retreat, foiled and disgraced, from this celebrated stronghold, in his destructive route to Saurashtra.
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³ A name derived from the goddess Sakambhari, the tutelary divinity of the tribes, whose statue is in the middle of the lake.
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⁴ Dharma Dhiraj, father of Bisaladeva, must have been the defender on this occasion.
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The attack on Manika Rae appears to have been by Kasim, the general of Walid, on the close of the first century of the Hegira.⁵ The second attack was at the end of the fourth century. A third was during the reign of Bisaladeva, who headed a grand confederacy of the Rajput princes against the foes of their religion. The celebrated Udayaditya Pramar is enumerated amongst the chiefs acting in subserviency to the Chauhan prince on this occasion, and as his death has been fixed by unerring records in A.D. 1096, this combination must have been against the Islamite king Maudud, the fourth from Mahmud; and to this victory is the allusion in the inscription on the ancient pillar of Delhi.¹ But these irruptions continued to the captivity and death of the last of the Chauhans, whose reign exhibits a splendid picture of feudal manners.
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⁵ [Muhammad bin Kāsim seems to have marched along the Indus valley, not in the direction of Ajmer (Malik Muhammad Din, Bahawalpur Gazetteer, i. 28).]
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¹ [This is doubtful. Maudūd seems to have not come further south than Siālkot (Al Badaoni, Muntakhabu-t-tawārīkh, i. 49; Elliot-Dowson ii. 273, iv. 139 f., 199 f., v. 160 f.).]
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The Chauhans sent forth twenty-four branches, of whom the most celebrated are the existing families of Bundi and Kotah, in the division termed Haravati. They have well maintained the Chauhan reputation for valour. Six princely brothers shed their blood in one field, in the support of the aged Shah Jahan against his rebellious son Aurangzeb, and of the six but one survived his wounds.
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The Khichis² of Gagraun and Raghugarh, the Deoras of Sirohi, the Sonigiras of Jalor, the Chauhans of Sui Bah and Sanchor, and the Pawechas of Pawagarh, have all immortalized themselves by the most heroic and devoted deeds. Most of these families yet exist, brave as in the days of Prithwiraja.
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² [The author has barely noticed the Khīchis; for an account of them see ASR, ii. 249 ff.]
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Many chiefs of the Chauhan race abandoned their faith to preserve their lands, the Kaimkhani,³ the Sarwanis, the Lowanis, the Kararwanis, and the Bedwanas [97], chiefly residing in Shaikhavati, are the most conspicuous. No less than twelve petty princes thus deserted their faith: which, however, is not contrary to the Rajput creed; for even Manu says, they may part with wife to preserve their land. Isaridas, nephew of Prithwiraja, was the first who set this example.
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³ About Fatehpur Jhunjhunu.
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Twenty-four Sakha of the Chauhans.—Chauhan, Hara, Khichi, Sonigira, Deora, Pabia, Sanchora, Goelwal, Bhadauria, Nirwan, Malani, Purbia, Sura, Madrecha, Sankrecha, Bhurecha, Balecha, Tasera, Chachera, Rosia, Chanda, Nikumbha, Bhawar, and Bankat.⁴
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⁴ [For a different list see Rajputana Census Report, 1911, i. 255.]
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Chalukya or Solanki.—Though we cannot trace the history of this branch of the Agnikulas to such periods of antiquity as the Pramara or Chauhan, it is from the deficiency of materials, rather than any want of celebrity, that we are unable to place it, in this respect, on a level with them. The tradition of the bard makes the Solankis important as princes of Sura on the Ganges, ere the Rathors obtained Kanauj.¹ The genealogical test² claims Lohkot, said to be the ancient Lahore, as a residence, which makes them of the same Sakha (Madhwani) as the Chauhans. Certain it is, that in the eighth century we find the Langahas³ and Togras inhabiting Multan and the surrounding country, the chief opponents of the Bhattis on their establishment in the desert. They were princes of Kalyan, on the Malabar coast,⁴ which city still exhibits vestiges of ancient grandeur. It was from Kalyan that a scion of the Solanki tree was taken, and engrafted on the royal stem of the Chawaras of Anhilwara Patan.
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¹ [The Chalukya is a Gurjara tribe, the name being the Sanskritized form of the old dynastic title, Chalkya, of the Deccan dynasty (A.D. 552–973); and of this Solanki is a dialectical variant (IA, xi. 24; BG, i. Part i. 156, Part ii. 336).]
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² Solanki Gotracharya is thus: “Madhwani Sakha — Bharadwaja Gotra—Garh Lohkot nikas—Sarasvati Nadi (river)—Sama Veda—Kapaliswar Deva—Karduman Rikheswar—Tin Parwar Zunar (zone of three threads)—Keonj Devi—Mahipal Putra (one of the Penates).” [Lohkot is Lohara in Kashmīr (Stein, Rājatarangini, i. Introd. 108, ii. 293 ff.).]
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³ Called Malkhani, being the sons of Mal Khan, the first apostate from his faith to Islamism. Whether these branches of the Solankis were compelled to quit their religion, or did it voluntarily, we know not.
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⁴ Near Bombay. [In Thana District, not Malabar coast.]
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It was in S. 987 (A.D. 931) that Bhojraj, the last of the Chawaras, and the Salic law of India were both set aside, to make way for the young Solanki, Mulraj,⁵ who ruled Anhilwara for the space of fifty-eight years. During the reign of his son and successor, Chamund Rae,⁶ Mahmud of Ghazni carried his desolating arms into the kingdom of Anhilwara. With its wealth he raised those [98] magnificent trophies of his conquest, among which the ‘Celestial Bride’ might have vied with anything ever erected by man as a monument of folly.¹ The wealth abstracted, as reported in the history of the conquerors, by this scourge of India, though deemed incredible, would obtain belief, if the commercial riches of Anhilwara could be appreciated. It was to India what Venice was to Europe, the entrepôt of the products of both the eastern and western hemispheres. It fully recovered the shock given by Mahmud and the desultory wars of his successors; and we find Siddharaja Jayasingha,² the seventh from the founder, at the head of the richest, if not the most warlike, kingdom of India. Two-and-twenty principalities at one time owned his power, from the Carnatic to the base of the Himalaya Mountains; but his unwise successor drew upon himself the vengeance of the Chauhan, Prithwiraja, a slip of which race was engrafted, in the person of Kumarapala, on the genealogical tree of the Solanki;³ and it is a curious fact that this dynasty of the Balakaraes alone gives us two examples of the Salic law of India being violated. Kumarapala, installed on the throne of Anhilwara, ‘tied round his head the turban of the Solanki.’ He became of the tribe into which he was adopted. Kumarapala, as well as Siddharaja, was the patron of Buddhism;⁴ and the monuments erected under them and their successors claim our admiration, from their magnificence and the perfection of the arts; for at no period were they more cultivated than at the courts of Anhilwara.
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⁵ Son of Jai Singh Solanki, the emigrant prince of Kalyan, who married the daughter of Bhojraj. These particulars are taken from a valuable little geographical and historical treatise, incomplete and without title. [Mūlarāja Chaulukya, A.D. 961–96, was son of Bhūbhata : Chāmunda, A.D. 997–1010; it was in the reign of Bhīma I. (1022–64) that Mahmūd’s invasion in A.D. 1024 occurred (BG, i. Part i. 156 ff. 164).]
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⁶ Called Chamund by Muhammadan historians.
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¹ [Ferishta i. 61.]
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² He ruled from S. 1150 to 1201 [A.D. 1094–1143]. It was his court that was visited by El Edrisi, commonly called the Nubian geographer, who particularly describes this prince as following the tenets of Buddha. [He was probably not a Jain (BG, i. Part i. 179).]
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³ [The Gujarāt account of the campaign is different (BG, i. Part i. 184 f.).]
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⁴ [Kumārapāla made many benefactions to the Jains (Ibid. i. Part i. 190 f.).]
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The lieutenants of Shihābu-d-din disturbed the close of Kumarapal’s reign; and his successor, Balo Muldeo, closed this dynasty in S. 1284 (A.D. 1228), when a new dynasty, called the Vaghela (descendants of Siddharaja) under Bīsaldeo, succeeded.⁵ The dilapidations from religious persecution were repaired; Somnath, renowned as Delphos of old, rose from its ruins, and the kingdom of the Balakaraes was attaining its pristine magnificence, when, under the fourth prince, Karandeva, the angel of destruction appeared in the shape of Alau-d-din, and the kingdom of Anhilwāra was annihilated. The lieutenants of the Tatar despot of Delhi let loose the spirit of intolerance and avarice on the rich cities and fertile plains of Gujarat and Saurashtra. In contempt of their faith, the altar of an Islamite Darvesh was placed in contact with the shrine of Adinath, on the [99] most accessible of their sacred mounts :¹ the statues of Buddha [the Jain Tirthankaras] were thrown down, and the books containing the mysteries of their faith suffered the same fate as the Alexandrian library. The walls of Anhilwara were demolished; its foundations excavated, and again filled up with the fragments of their ancient temples.²
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⁵ [Ajayapāla succeeded Kumārapāla. Bhima II. (A.D. 1179–1242), called Bholo, ‘the simpleton,’ was the last of the Chaulukya dynasty, which was succeeded by that of the Vāghelas (1219–1304). Visaladeva reigned A.D. 1243–61. See a full account, Ibid. 194 ff.]
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¹ Satranjaya. [IGI, xix. 361 ff.] ² In 1822 I made a journey to explore the remains of antiquity in Saurashtra. I discovered a ruined suburb of the ancient Patan still bearing the name of Anhilwara, the Nahrwara, which D'Anville had "fort à cœur de retrouver." I meditate a separate account of this kingdom, and the dynasties which governed it. ³ [Zafar Khān, son of Sahāran of the Tānk tribe of Rājputs, embraced Islam, and became viceroy of Gujarāt. According to Ferishta, he threw off his allegiance to Delhi in 1396, or rather maintained a nominal allegiance till 1403. Ahmad was grandson, not son, of Muzaffar. (Ferishta iv. 2 f.; Bayley, Dynasties of Gujarat, 67 ff.; BG, i. Part i. 232 f.).] ⁴ The name of this subdivision is from Bagh Rao, the son of Siddhārāja; though the bards have another tradition for its origin. [They take their name from the village Vaghela near Anhilwāra (BG, i. Part i. 198).]
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The remnants of the Solanki dynasty were scattered over the land, and this portion of India remained for upwards of a century without any paramount head, until, by a singular dispensation of Providence, its splendour was renovated, and its foundations rebuilt, by an adventurer of the same race from which the Agnikulas were originally converts, though Saharan the Tak hid his name and his tribe under his new epithet of Zafar Khan, and as Muzaffar ascended the throne of Gujarat, which he left to his son. This son was Ahmad, who founded Ahmadabad, whose most splendid edifices were built from the ancient cities around it.³
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Bāghels.—Though the stem of the Solankis was thus uprooted, yet was it not before many of its branches (Sakha), like their own indigenous bar-tree, had fixed themselves in other soils. The most conspicuous of these is the Baghela⁴ family, which gave its name to an entire division of Hindustan; and Baghelkhand has now been ruled for many centuries by the descendants of Siddharaja.
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Besides Bandhugarh, there are minor chieftainships still in Gujarat of the Baghela tribe. Of these, Pethapur and Tharad are the most conspicuous. One of the chieftains of the second class in Mewar is a Solanki, and traces his line immediately from Siddharaja: this is the chief of Rupnagar,¹ whose stronghold commands one of the passes leading to Marwar, and whose family annals would furnish a fine picture of the state of border-feuds. Few of them, till of late years, have died natural deaths.
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¹ I knew this chieftain well, and a very good specimen he is of the race. He is in possession of the famous war-shell of Jai Singh, which is an heirloom.
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The Solanki is divided into sixteen branches [100].
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1. Baghela—Raja of Baghelkhand (capital Bandhugarh), Raos of Pitapur, Tharad, and Adalaj, etc.
2. Birpura—Rao of Lunawara.
3. Bahala—Kalyanpur in Mewar, styled Rao, but serving the chief of Salumbar.
4. Bhurta²
5. Kalacha² } In Baru, Tekra, and Chahir, in Jaisalmer.
6. Langaha—Muslims about Multan.
7. Togra—Muslims in the Panjnad.
8. Brika— ,, ,,
9. Surki—In Deccan.
10. Sarwaria³—Girnar in Saurashtra.
11. Raka—Toda in Jaipur.
12. Ranakia—Desuri in Mewar.
13. Kharara—Alota and Jawara, in Malwa.
14. Tantia—Chandbhar Sakanbari.⁴
15. Almecha—No land.
16. Kalamor—Gujarat.⁵
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² Famous robbers in the deserts, known as the Malduts.
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³ Celebrated in traditional history.
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⁴ Desperate robbers. I saw this place fired and levelled in 1807, when the noted Karim Pindari was made prisoner by Sindhia. It afterwards cost some British blood in 1817.
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⁵ [For another list see Census Report, Rajputana, 1911, i. 256.]
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Pratihāra or Parihāra.—Of this, the last and least of the Agnikulas, we have not much to say. The Pariharas never acted a conspicuous part in the history of Rajasthan. They are always discovered in a subordinate capacity, acting in feudal subjection to the Tuars of Delhi or the Chauhans of Ajmer; and the brightest page of their history is the record of an abortive attempt of Nahar Rao to maintain his independence against Prithwiraja. Though a failure, it has immortalized his name, and given to the scene of action,¹ one of the passes of the Aravalli, a merited celebrity. Mandor¹ (classically Maddodara) was the capital of the Parihars, and was the chief city of Marwar which owned the sway of this tribe prior to the invasion and settlement of the Rathors. It is placed five miles northward of the modern Jodhpur, and preserves some specimens of the ancient Pali character, fragments of sculpture and Jain temples.
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¹ Though now desolate, the walls of this fortress attest its antiquity, and it is a work that could not be undertaken in this degenerate age. The remains of it bring to mind those of Volterra or Cortona, and other ancient cities of Tuscany: enormous squared masses of stone without any cement. [For a full account of Mandor, see Erskine iii. A. 196 ff.]
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The Rathor emigrant princes of Kanauj found an asylum with the Parihars. They repaid it by treachery, and Chonda, a name celebrated in the Rathor annals, dispossessed the last of the Parihars, and pitched the flag of the Rathors on the battlements of Mandor. The power of the Parihars had, however, been much reduced previously by the princes of Mewar, who not only abstracted much territory from them, but assumed the title of its princes—Rana.²
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² This was in the thirteenth century [A.D. 1381], when Mandor was captured, and its prince slain, by the Rawal of Chitor.
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The Parihara is scattered over Rajasthan, but I am unaware of the existence of any independent chieftainship there. At the confluence of the Kuhari, the Sind, and the Chambal, there is a colony of this race, which has given its name to a commune of twenty-four villages, besides hamlets, situated amidst the ravines of these streams. They were nominally subjects of Sindhia; but it was deemed requisite for the line of defence along the Chambal that it should be included within the British demarcation, by which we incorporated with our rule the most notorious body of thieves in the annals of Thug history.
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The Parihars had twelve subdivisions, of which the chief were the Indha and Sindhal : a few of both are still to be found about the banks of the Luni.¹
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¹ [Six sub-clans are named in Census Report, Rajputana, 1911, i. 255.] ² [They have been supposed to be a branch of the Pramārs, but they are certainly of Gurjara origin (IA, iv. 145 f. ; BG, ix. Part i. 124, 488 f. ; i. Part i. 149 ff.). According to Wilberforce-Bell, the word Chaura in Gujarāt means ‘robber’ (History of Kathiawad, 51).] ³ The Σύροι of the Greek writers on Bactria, the boundary of the Bactrian kingdom under Apollodotus. On this see the paper on Grecian medals in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. ⁴ Many of the inhabitants of the south and west of India cannot pronounce the ch, and invariably substitute the s. Thus the noted Pindari leader Chitu was always called Situ by the Deccanis. Again, with many of the tribes of the desert, the s is alike a stumbling-block, which causes many singular mistakes, when Jaisalmer, the ‘hill of Jaisal,’ becomes Jahlmer, ‘the hill of fools.’
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Chāwara or Chaura.—This tribe was once renowned in the history of India, though its name is now scarcely known, or only in the chronicles of the bard. Of its origin we are in ignorance. It belongs neither to the Solar nor Lunar race, and consequently we may presume it to be of Scythic origin.² The name is unknown in Hindustan, and is confined, with many others originating from beyond the Indus, to the peninsula of Saurashtra. If foreign to India proper, its establishment must have been at a remote period, as we find individuals of it intermarrying with the Suryavansa ancestry of the present princes of Mewar, when this family were the lords of Valabhi.
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The capital of the Chawaras was the insular Deobandar, on the coast of Saurashtra, and the celebrated temple of Somnath, with many others on this coast, dedicated to Balnath, or the sun, is attributed to this tribe of the Sauras,³ or [102] worshippers of the sun ; most probably the generic name of the tribe as well as of the peninsula.⁴
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By a natural catastrophe, or as the Hindu superstitious chroniclers will have it, as a punishment for the piracies of the prince of Deo, the element whose privilege he abused rose and overwhelmed his capital. As all this coast is very low, such an occurrence is not improbable ; though the abandonment of Deo might have been compelled by the irruptions of the Arabians, who at this period carried on a trade with these parts, and the plunder of some of their vessels may have brought this punishment on the Chawaras. That it was owing to some such political catastrophe, we have additional grounds for belief from the annals of Mewar, which state that its princes inducted the Chawaras into the seats of the power they abandoned on the continent and peninsula of Saurashtra.
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At all events, the prince of Deo laid the foundation of Anhilwara Patan in S. 802 (A.D. 746), which henceforth became the capital city of this portion of India, in lieu of Valabhipura, which gave the title of Balakaraes to its princes, the Balhara of the earlier Arabian travellers, and following them, the geographers of Europe.¹
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¹ [The Balhara of Arab travellers of the tenth century were the Rashtrakūta dynasty of Mālkhed, Balhara being a corruption of Vallabharāja, Vallabha being the royal title (BG, i. Part ii. 209).]
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Vana Raja (or, in the dialects, Banraj) was this founder, and his dynasty ruled for one hundred and eighty-four years, when, as related in the sketch of the Solanki tribe, Bhojraj, the seventh from the founder, was deposed by his nephew.² It was during this dynasty that the Arabian travellers³ visited this court, of which they have left but a confused picture. We are not, however, altogether in darkness regarding the Chawara race, as in the Khuman Raesa, one of the chronicles of Mewar, mention is made of the auxiliaries under a leader named Chatansi, in the defence of Chitor against the first attack on record of the Muhammadans.
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² [Vanarāja reigned from A.D. 765 to 780, and the dynasty is said to have lasted 196 years, but the evidence is still incomplete. The name of Bhojrāj does not appear in the most recent lists (BG, i. Part i. 152 ff.).]
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³ *Rélations anciennes des Voyageurs*, par Renaudot.
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When Mahmud of Ghazni invaded Saurashtra and captured its capital, Anhilwara, he deposed its prince, and placed upon the throne, according to Ferishta, a prince of the former dynasty, renowned for his ancient line and purity of blood, and who is styled Dabichalima; a name which has puzzled all European commentators. Now the Dabhi was a celebrated tribe, said by some to be a branch of the [103] Chawara, and this therefore may be a compound of Dabhi Chawara, or the Chaurasima, by some called a branch of the ancient Yadus.⁴
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⁴ [The true form of this puzzling term seems to be Dābshalīm, whose story is told in Elliot-Dowson (ii. 500 ff., iv. 183). Much of the account is mere tradition, but it has been plausibly suggested that when Bhīma I., the Chaulukya king of Anhilwāra was defeated by Mahmūd of Ghazni in A.D.
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This ancient connexion between the Suryavansi chiefs and the Chawaras, or Sauras, of Saurashtra, is still maintained after a lapse of more than one thousand years; for although an alliance with the Rana's family is deemed the highest honour that a Hindu prince can obtain, as being the first in rank in Rajasthan, yet is the humble Chawara sought out, even at the foot of fortune's ladder, whence to carry on the blood of Rama. The present heir-apparent of a line of ‘one hundred kings,’ the prince Jawān Singh [1828-38], is the offspring of a Chawara mother, the daughter of a petty chieftain of Gujarat.
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It were vain to give any account of the present state of the families bearing this name. They must depend upon the fame of past days; to this we leave them.
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Tāk or Takshak.—Takshak appears to be the generic term of the race from which the various Scythic tribes, the early invaders of India, branched off. It appears of more ancient application than Getae, which was the parent of innumerable sakha. It might not be judicious to separate them, though it would be speculative to say which was the primitive title of the races called Scythic, after their country, Sakatai or Sakadwipa, the land of the great Getae.
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Abulghazi makes Taunak¹ the son of Turk or Targetai, who appears to be the Turushka of the Puranas, the Tukyuks of the Chinese historians, the nomadic Tokhari of Strabo, who aided to overturn the Greek kingdom of Bactria, and gave their name to
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¹ Abulghazi [*Hist. of the Turks, Moguls, and Tartars*, 1730, i. 5 f.] says, when Noah left the ark he divided the earth amongst his three sons: Shem had Iran: Japhet, the country of ‘Kuttup Shamach,’ the name of the regions between the Caspian Sea and India. There he lived two hundred and fifty years. He left eight sons, of whom Turk was the elder and the seventh Camari, supposed the Gomer of Scripture. Turk had four sons; the eldest of whom was Taunak, the fourth from whom was Mogul, a corruption of Mongol, signifying sad, whose successors made the Jaxartes their winter abode. [The word means ‘brave’ (Howorth, *Hist. of the Mongols*, i. 27).] Under his reign no trace of the true religion remained: idolatry reigned everywhere. Aghuz Khan succeeded. The ancient Cimbri, who went west with Odin's horde of Jats, Chattis, and Su, were probably the tribes descended from Camari, the son of Turk.
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1024, the latter may have appointed Durlabha, uncle of Bhīma, to keep order in Gujarāt, and that the two Dābshalīms may be identified with Durlabha and his son (BG, i. Part i. 168). Also see Ferishta i. 76; Bayley, *Muhammadan Dynasties of Gujarāt*, 32 ff.]
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the grand division of Asia, Tokharistan ¹ or Turkistan : and there is every appearance of that singular race, the Tajik,² still scattered over these [104] regions, and whose history appears a mystery, being the descendants of the Takshak.
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¹ Tacash continued to be a proper name with the great Khans of Khārizm (Chorasmia) until they adopted the faith of Muhammad. The father of Jalal, the foe of Jenghiz Khan, was named Tacash. Tashkent on the Jaxartes, the capital of Turkistan, may be derived from the name of the race. Bayer says, “Tocharistan was the region of the Tochari, who were the ancient Τόχαροι (Tochari), or Τάχαροι (Tacharoi).” Ammianus Marcellinus says, “many nations obey the Bactrians, whom the Tochari surpass” (Hist. Reg. Bact. p. 7).
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² This singular race, the Tajiks, are repeatedly mentioned by Mr. Elphinstone in his admirable account of the kingdom of Kabul. They are also particularly noticed as monopolising the commercial transactions of the kingdom of Bokhara, in that interesting work, *Voyage d’Orenbourg à Bokhara*, the map accompanying which, for the first time, lays down authentically the sources and course of the Oxus and Jaxartes. [The term Tājik means the settled population, as opposed to the Turks or tent-dwellers. It is the same word as Tāzi, ‘Arab,’ still surviving in the name of the Persian greyhound, which was apparently introduced by the Arabs. Sykes (Hist. of Persia, ii. 153, note) and Skrine-Ross (The Heart of Asia, 3, 364 note) state that the Tājiks represent the Iranian branch of the Aryans.]
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It has been already observed, that ancient inscriptions in the Pali or Buddhist character have been discovered in various parts of Rajasthan, of the race called Tasta, Takshak, and Tak, relating to the tribes, the Mori [or Maurya], Pramara, their descendants. Naga and Takshak are synonymous appellations in Sanskrit for the snake, and the Takshak is the celebrated Nagvansa of the early heroic history of India. The Mahabharata describes, in its usual allegorical style, the wars between the Pandavas of Indraprastha and the Takshaks of the north. The assassination of Parikshita by the Takshak, and the exterminating warfare carried on against them by his son and successor, Janamejaya, who at last compelled them to sign tributary engagements, divested of its allegory,³ is plain historical fact.
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³ The Mahabharata describes this warfare against the snakes literally : of which, in one attack, he seized and made a burnt-offering (hom) of twenty thousand. It is surprising that the Hindu will accept these things literally. It might be said he had but a choice of difficulties, and that it would be as impossible for any human being to make the barbarous sacrifice of twenty thousand of his species, as it would be difficult to find twenty thousand snakes for the purpose. The author’s knowledge of what barbarity will inflict leaves the fact of the human sacrifice, though not perhaps to this extent, not even improbable. In 1811 his duties called him to a survey
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When Alexander invaded India, he found the Paraitakai, the mountain (pahar) Tak, inhabiting the Paropamisos range; nor is it by any means unlikely that Taxiles,¹ the ally of the Macedonian king, was the chief (es) of the Taks; and in the early history of the Bhatti princes of Jaisalmer, when driven from Zabulistan, they dispossessed the Taks on the Indus, and established themselves in their land, the capital of which was called Salivahanpura; and as the date of this event is given as 3008 of the Yudhishthira era, it is by no means unlikely that Salivahana, or Salbhan (who was a Takshak), the conqueror of the Tuar Vikrama, was of the very family dispossessed by the Bhattis, who compelled them to migrate to the south.
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¹ Arrian says that his name was Omphis [Āmbhi], and that his father dying at this time, he did homage to Alexander, who invested him with the title and estates of his father Taxiles. Hence, perhaps (from Tak), the name of the Indus, Attak; [?] not Atak; or 'forbidden,' according to modern signification, and which has only been given since the Muhammadan religion for a time made it the boundary between the two faiths. [All these speculations are valueless.]
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The calculated period of the invasion of the Takshaks, or Nagvansa, under Sheshnag, is about six or seven centuries before the Christian era, at which very [105] period the Scythic invasion of Egypt and Syria, " by the sons of Togarmah riding on horses " (the Aswas, or Asi), is alike recorded by the prophet Ezekiel and Diodorus. The Abu Mahatma calls the Takshaks " the sons of Himachal," all evincing Scythic descent; and it was only eight reigns anterior to this change in the Lunar dynasties of India, that Parsvanath, the twenty-third Buddha [Jain Tirthankara], introduced his tenets into India, and fixed his abode in the holy mount Sarnet.²
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² In Bihar, during the reign of Pradyota, the successor of Ripunjaya. Parsva's symbol is the serpent of Takshak. His doctrines spread to the remotest parts of India, and the princes of Valabhipura of Mandor and Anhilwara all held to the tenets of Buddha. [As usual, Jains are confounded with Buddhists. There is no reason to believe that the Nāgas, a serpent-worshipping tribe, were not indigenous in India.]
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amidst the ravines of the Chambal, the tract called Gujargarh, a district inhabited by the Gujar tribe. Turbulent and independent, like the sons of Esau, their hand against every man and every man's hand against them, their nominal prince, Surajmall, the Jāt chief of Bharatpur, pursued exactly the same plan towards the population of these villages, whom they captured in a night attack, that Janamejaya did to the Takshaks: he threw them into pits with combustibles, and actually thus consumed them! This occurred not three-quarters of a century ago.
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Enough of the ancient history of the Tak; we will now descend to more modern times, on which we shall be brief. We have already mentioned the Takshak Mori [or Maurya] as being lords of Chitor from a very early period; and but a few generations after the Guhilots supplanted the Moris, this palladium of Hindu liberty was assailed by the arms of Islam. We find amongst the numerous defenders who appear to have considered the cause of Chitor their own, “the Tak from Asirgarh.”¹ This race appears to have retained possession of Asir for at least two centuries after this event, as its chieftain was one of the most conspicuous leaders in the array of Prithwiraja. In the poems of Chand he is called the “standard-bearer, Tak of Asir.”²
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¹ This is the celebrated fortress in Khandesh, now in the possession of the British.
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² In the list of the wounded at the battle of Kanauj he is mentioned by name, as “Chatto the Tak.”
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This ancient race, the foe of Janamejaya and the friend of Alexander, closed its career in a blaze of splendour. The celebrity of the kings of Gujarat will make amends for the obscurity of the Taks of modern times, of whom a dynasty of fourteen kings followed each other in succession, commencing and ending with the proud title of Muzaffar. It was in the reign of Muhammad,³ son of the first Tughlak, that an accident to his nephew Firoz proved the dawn of the fortunes of the Tak; purchased, however, with the change of name and religion. Saharan the Tak was the first apostate of his line, who, under the name of Wajihu-l-mulk, concealed both his origin and tribe. His son, Zafar Khan, was raised by his patron Firoz to the government of Gujarat, about the period when Timur invaded India. Zafar availed himself of the weakness of his master and the distraction of the times, and mounted the throne of Gujarat under the name of [106] Muzaffar.⁴ He was assassinated by the hand of his grandson, Ahmad, who changed the ancient capital, Anhilwara, for the city founded by himself, and called Ahmadabad, one of the most splendid in the east. With the apostasy of the Tak,⁵ the name appears to have been obliterated from the tribes of Rajasthan; nor has my search ever discovered one of this name now existing.
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³ He reigned from A.D. 1324 to 1351.
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⁴ ‘The victorious’ [see p. 118 above].
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⁵ The Mirātu-l-Sikandari gives the ancestry of the apostate for twenty-three generations; the last of whom was Sesh, the same which introduced the Nagvansa, seven centuries before the Christian era, into India. The author of the work gives the origin of the name of Tak, or Tank, from tarka, ‘expulsion,’ from his caste, which he styles Khatri, evincing his ignorance of this ancient race.
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Jat, Jāt.—In all the ancient catalogues of the thirty-six royal races of India the Jat has a place, though by none is he ever styled ‘Rajput’; nor am I aware of any instance of a Rajput’s intermarriage with a Jat.¹ It is a name widely disseminated over India, though it does not now occupy a very elevated place amongst the inhabitants, belonging chiefly to the agricultural classes.
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¹ [Though apparently there is no legal connubium between Jāts and Rājputs, the two tribes are closely connected, and it has been suggested that both had their origin in invaders from Central Asia, the leaders becoming Rājputs, the lower orders Jāt peasants. The author, at the close of Vol. II., gives an inscription recording the marriage of a Jāt with a Yādava princess.]
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In the Panjab they still retain their ancient name of Jat. On the Jumna and Ganges they are styled Jāts, of whom the chief of Bharatpur is the most conspicuous. On the Indus and in Saurashtra they are termed Jats. The greater portion of the husbandmen in Rajasthan are Jats; and there are numerous tribes beyond the Indus, now proselytes to the Muhammadan religion, who derive their origin from this class.
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Of its ancient history sufficient has been already said. We will merely add, that the kingdom of the great Getae, whose capital was on the Jaxartes, preserved its integrity and name from the period of Cyrus to the fourteenth century, when it was converted from idolatry to the faith of Islam. Herodotus [iv. 93-4] informs us that the Getae were theists and held the tenet of the soul’s immortality; and De Guignes,² from Chinese authorities, asserts that at a very early period they had embraced the religion of Fo or Buddha.
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² “The superiority of the Chinese over the Turks caused the great Khan to turn his arms against the Nomadic Getae of Mawaru-l-nahr (Transoxiana), descended from the Yueh-chi, and bred on the Jihun or Oxus, whence they had extended themselves along the Indus and even Ganges, and are there yet found. These Getae had embraced the religion of Fo” (Hist. Gén. des Huns, tom. i. p. 375).
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The traditions of the Jats claim the regions west of the Indus as the cradle of the race, and make them of Yadu extraction; thus corroborating the annals of the Yadus, which state their migration from Zabulistan, and almost inducing us to [107] dispense with the descent of this tribe from Krishna, and to pronounce it an important colony of the Yueh-chi, Yuti, or Jats. Of the first migration from Central Asia of this race within the Indus we have no record; it might have been simultaneous with the Takshak, from the wars of Cyrus or his ancestors.
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It has been already remarked that the Jat divided with the Takshak the claim of being the parent name of the various tribes called Scythic, invaders of India; and there is now before the author an inscription of the fifth century applying both epithets to the same prince,¹ who is invested moreover with the Scythic quality of worshipping the sun. It states, likewise, that the mother of this Jat prince was of Yadu race: strengthening their claims to a niche amongst the thirty-six Rajkulas, as well as their Yadu descent.
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¹ “To my foe, salutation! This foe how shall I describe? Of the race of Jat Kathida, whose ancestor, the warrior Takshak, formed the garland on the neck of Mahadeva.” Though this is a figurative allusion to the snake necklace of the father of creation, yet it evidently pointed to the Jat’s descent from the Takshak. But enough has been said elsewhere of the snake race, the parent of the Scythic tribes, which the divine Milton seems to have taken from Diodorus’s account of the mother of the Scythae:
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The fifth century of the Christian era, to which this inscription belongs, is a period of interest in Jat history. De Guignes, from original authorities, states the Yueh-chi or Jats to have established themselves in the Panjab in the fifth and sixth centuries, and the inscription now quoted applies to a prince whose capital is styled Salindrapura in these regions; and doubtless the Salivahanpur² where the Yadu Bhattis established themselves on the expulsion of the Tak.
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² This place existed in the twelfth century as a capital; since an inscription of Kamarpal, prince of Anhilwara, declares that this monarch carried his conquests “even to Salpur.” There is Sialkot in Rennell’s geography, and Wilford mentions “Sangala, a famous city in ruins, sixty miles west by north of Lahore, situated in a forest, and said to be built by Puru.”
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“Woman to the waist, and fair;
But ended foul in many a scaly fold!”
*Paradise Lost*, Book ii. 650 f.
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Whether the *Jat Kathida* is the Jat or Getae of Cathay (*da* being the mark of the genitive case) we will leave to conjecture [?]. [Ney Elias (*History of the Moghuls of Central Asia*, 75) suggests that the theory of the connexion between Jāts and Getae was largely based on an error regarding the term *jatah*, ‘rascal,’ applied as a mark of reproach to the Moguls by the Chagatai.]
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How much earlier than this the Jat penetrated into Rajasthan must be left to more ancient inscriptions to determine : suffice it that in A.D. 440 we find him in power.¹
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¹ At this time (A.D. 449) the Jut brothers, Hengist and Horsa, led a colony from Jutland and founded the kingdom of Kent (qu. Kantha, ‘a coast,’ in Sanskrit, as in Gothic Konta ?). The laws they there introduced, more especially the still prevailing one of gavelkind, where all the sons share equally, except the youngest who has a double portion, are purely Scythic, and brought by the original Goth from the Jaxartes. Alaric had finished his career, and Theodoric and Genseric (ric, ‘king,’ in Sanskrit [?]) were carrying their arms into Spain and Africa. [These speculations are valueless.]
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When the Yadu was expelled from Salivahanpura, and forced to seek refuge [108] across the Sutlej among the Dahia and Johya Rajputs of the Indian desert, where they founded their first capital, Derawar, many from compulsion embraced the Muham-madan faith ; on which occasion they assumed the name of Jat,² of which at least twenty different offsets are enumerated in the Yadu chronicles.
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² Why should these proselytes, if originally Yadu, assume the name of Jat or Jāt ? It must be either that the Yadus were themselves the Scythic Yuti or Yueh-chi, or that the branches intermarried with the Jats, and consequently became degraded as Yadus, and the mixed issue bore the name of the mother.
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That the Jats continued as a powerful community on the east bank of the Indus and in the Panjab, fully five centuries after the period our inscription and their annals illustrate, we have the most interesting records in the history of Mahmud, the conqueror of India, whose progress they checked in a manner unprécedented in the annals of continental warfare. It was in 416 of the Hegira (A.D. 1026) that Mahmud marched an army against the Jats, who had harassed and insulted him on the return from his last expedition against Saurashtra. The interest of the account authorizes its being given from the original.
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" The Jats inhabited the country on the borders of Multan, along the river that runs by the mountains of Jud.³ When Mahmud reached Multan, finding the Jat country defended by great rivers, he built fifteen hundred boats,⁴ each armed with six iron spikes projecting from their prows, to prevent their being boarded by the enemy, expert in this kind of warfare. In each boat he placed twenty archers, and some with fire-balls of naphtha to burn the Jat fleet. The monarch having determined on their extirpation, awaited the result at Multan. The Jats sent their wives, children, and effects to Sind Sagar,¹ and launched four thousand, or, as others say, eight thousand boats well armed to meet the Ghaznians. A terrible conflict ensued, but the projecting spikes sunk the Jat boats while others were set on fire. Few escaped from this scene of terror; and those who did, met with the more severe fate of captivity."²
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³ The Jadu ka Dang, ‘or hills of Yadu,’ mentioned in the sketch of this race as one of their intermediate points of halt when they were driven from India after the Mahabharata.
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⁴ Near the spot where Alexander built his fleet, which navigated to Babylon thirteen hundred years before.
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¹ Translated by Dow, ‘an island.’ Sind Sagar is one of the Duabas of the Panjab. I have compared Dow’s translation of the earlier portion of the history of Ferishta with the original, and it is infinitely more faithful than the world gives him credit for. His errors are most considerable in numerals and in weights and measures; and it is owing to this that he has made the captured wealth of India appear so incredible.
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² Ferishta vol. i. [The translation in the text is an abstract of that of Dow (i. 72). That of Briggs (i. 81 f.) is more accurate. In neither version is there any mention of the Sind Sāgar. Rose (Glossary, ii. 359) discredits the account of this naval engagement, and expresses a doubt whether the Jats at this period occupied Jūd or the Salt Ranges.]
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Many doubtless did escape; and it is most probable that the Jat communities, on whose overthrow the State of Bikaner was founded, were remnants of this very warfare [109].
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Not long after this event the original empire of the Getae was overturned, when many fugitives found a refuge in India. In 1360 Togultash Timur was the great Khan of the Getae nation; idolaters even to this period. He had conquered Khorasan, invaded Transoxiana (whose prince fled, but whose nephew, Amir Timur, averted its subjugation), gained the friendship of Togultash, and commanded a hundred thousand Getae warriors. In 1369, when the Getic Khan died, such was the ascendancy obtained by Timur over his subjects, that the Kuriltai, or general assembly, transferred the title of Grand Khan from the Getic to the Chagatai Timur. In 1370 he married a Getic princess, and added Khokhand and Samarkand to his patrimony, Transoxiana. Rebellions and massacres almost depopulated this nursery of mankind, ere the Getae abandoned their independence; nor was it till 1388, after six invasions, in which he burnt their towns, brought away their wealth, and almost annihilated the nation, that he felt himself secure.³
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³ [By the ‘Getae’ of the text the author apparently means Mongols.]
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In his expedition into India, having overrun great part of Europe, “ taken Moscow, and slain the soldiers of the barbarous Urus,” he encountered his old foes “ the Getae, who inhabited the plains of Tohim, where he put two thousand to the sword, pursuing them into the desert and slaughtering many more near the Ghaggar.”¹
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¹ Abulghazi vol. ii. chap. 16. After his battle with Sultan Mahmud of Delhi, Timur gave orders, to use the word of his historian, “ for the slaughter of a hundred thousand infidel slaves. The great mosque was fired, and the souls of the infidels were sent to the abyss of hell. Towers were erected of their heads, and their bodies were thrown as food to the beasts and birds of prey. At Mairta the infidel Guebres were flayed alive.” This was by order of Tamerlane, to whom the dramatic historians of Europe assign every great and good quality!
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Still the Jat maintained himself in the Panjab, and the most powerful and independent prince of India at this day is the Jat prince of Lahore, holding dominion over the identical regions where the Yueh-chi colonized in the fifth century, and where the Yadus, driven from Ghazni, established themselves on the ruins of the Taks. The Jat cavalier retains a portion of his Scythic manners, and preserves the use of the chakra or discus, the weapon of the Yadu Krishna in the remote age of the Bharat.
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Linked texts (14)
- Tārīkh-i Firishta — Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh Firishta 1606, Persian
- Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
- Pṛthvīrāj Rāso — Cand Bardāī, Hindi
- Sāmavedasaṃhitā — Sanskrit
- Purāṇa — Sanskrit
- Valabhi
- Mandor
- Girnar
- Chotila
- Dhank
- Kalyana
- Ghumli
- Kumārapālacarita (Prākṛtadvyāśraya) — Hemacandra, Prakrit
- Inscription (EC 9 Bn 108) — Tamil