Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.t1.82

v1.c20.t1.82

Bappa had reached the patriarchal age of one hundred when he died. An old volume of historical anecdotes, belonging to the chief of Delwara, states that he became an ascetic at the foot of Meru, where he was buried alive after having overcome all the kings of the west, as in Ispahan, Kandahar, Kashmir, Irak, Iran, Turan, and Kafiristan ; all of whose daughters he married, and by whom he had one hundred and thirty sons, called the Naus-shahra Pathans. Each of these founded a tribe, bearing the name of the mother. His Hindu children were ninety-eight in number, and were called Agni-upasi Suryavansi, or ‘sunborn fire-worshippers.’ The chronicles also record that (in like manner as did the subjects of the Bactrian king Menander, though from a different motive) the subjects of Bappa quarrelled for the disposal of his remains. The Hindu wished the fire to consume them ; the ‘barbarian’ to commit them to earth ; but on raising the pall while the dispute was raging, innumerable flowers of the lotus were found in the place of the remains of mortality : these were conveyed and planted in the lake. This is precisely what is related of the end of the Persian Nushirwan ⁴ [229].