Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c30.t1: Ancient Sites in Jaisalmer
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v2.c30.t1
- Language
- English
Ancient Sites in Jaisalmer
v2.c30.t1.1
It is an interesting hypothesis, that would make the Chagatais descendants of the Yadus.² In like manner, Bappa, the ancestor of the Ranas of Mewar, abandoned Central India after establishing his line in Chitor, and retired to Khorasan. All this proves that Hinduism prevailed in these distant regions, and that the intercourse was unrestricted between Central Asia and India. We have undiscovered fields of inquiry in Transoxiana, and in the still more accessible region of the Panjab, where much exists to reward the archaeologist; Salbahanpur, Kampilanagari, Bahra, the hill of Jud, perhaps Bucephalia,³ the seven towns of Uchh, but, above all, the capital of Taxiles. Let us hope that, in this age of enterprise, these suggestions may be followed up; we can promise the adventurer a very different result from that which tempts the explorer of barbarous Africa, for here he would penetrate into the first haunts of civilization, and might solve one of the great problems which still distract mankind [232].
v2.c30.t1.2
² Mr. Wilson discovered the name of Pandu in Ptolemy's *Geography* of Sogdiana; and according to Ebn Haukal, the city of Herat is also called Hari. This adjoins Maru, or Merv, and to Marusthali the Pandu and Harikula races retired on their exile from India. If ever these remote regions are searched for ancient inscriptions, we may yet ascend the ladder of Time. What was that Hamiri language, inscribed on the gate of Samarkand? (Ouseley, *Ebn Haukal*, p. 254). The lamented death of that enterprising traveller, Mr. Brown, when he was about visiting Transoxiana, leaves a fine field to the adventurous. The Buddhist colossal sculptures and caves at Bamian, with such inscriptions as they may contain, are of the highest importance; and I have little doubt, will be found of the same character as those discovered in the cave temples of India, attributed to the Pandus. [The author depended on Wilford (*Asiatic Researches*, vi. 462 ff.). For Bamiān see *EB*, 11th ed. iii. 304 f.]
v2.c30.t1.3
³ In a portion of the essay "On the Theban and Hindu Hercules," which I suppressed as better suited to an intended dissertation "On the Sepulchral Monuments of the Rajpoots," where I trace a close analogy between their customs and those of the Scythic and Scandinavian Warriors, my particular attention was drawn to that singular monument discovered by Elphinstone, called the "Tope Manikiala." I had before (*Trans. R.A.S.* vol. i. p. 330) conjectured it to be one of the many mausoleums erected to Menander, but on observing the geography of St. Croix, in his *Examen Critique des Historiens d'Alexandre*, who places the city of Bucephalus on the very spot where the monument found by Mr. E. exists, I gave up Menander for Alexander's horse, and this, long anterior to its reported excavation by the
v2.c30.t1.4
Question of Dates.—The dates of the varied events related in the preceding chapter may be of doubtful accuracy, but we have at length arrived on the terra firma of Bhatti chronology. We may distrust the date, 3008 of Yudishthira’s era, for the victory obtained by the Jadon prince of Gajni over the kings of Rum and Khorasan;¹ as well as that of S. 72 assigned for the exode of Salbahan and his Yadus from Zabulistan, and their colonization of the Panjab;² but their settlements in the desert, and the foundation of [233] Tanot, their first seat of power, in S. 787 (A.D. 731), are corroborated by incontrovertible synchronisms in almost every subsequent reign of these annals.
v2.c30.t1.5
¹ The emperor Babur tells us, in his Commentaries, that the people of India apply the term Khorasan to all the regions west of the Indus.
v2.c30.t1.6
² Notwithstanding the lapse of eleven hundred years since the expulsion of the Bhattis from the Panjab, and in spite of the revolutions in laws, language, and religion, since the descendants of Salbahan abandoned that region, yet, even to this day, there is abundant testimony in the geographical nomenclature that the Bhattis had dominion there. We have Pindi Bhattia-ka, Bhatti-ka-chak, in the very position where we should look for Salbahanpur.—See Elphinstone’s Map. [Sālbāhanpur is generally identified with Siālkot (ASR, ii. 21).]
v2.c30.t1.7
Rāo Kehar I.—Kehar, a name highly respected in the history of the Bhatti race, and whose exploit has been already recorded, must have been the cotemporary of the celebrated Caliph Al Walid,³ the first whose arms extended to the plains of India, and one of whose earliest conquests and chief positions was Aror, the capital of Upper Sind.
v2.c30.t1.8
³ [Walid I., seventh Caliph of the house of Ummaya (A.D. 705–14).]
v2.c30.t1.9
Chev. Ventura, for whose subsequent observations we impatiently wait. [Mānikiāla, in the Rāwalpindi District; the Stūpa marks the spot where Gautama Buddha offered his body to appease the hunger of seven tiger cubs (IGI, xvii. 182 f.). The site of Boukephala is practically identical with the modern Jihlam (Smith, EHI, 71).]
v2.c30.t1.10
Rāo Tano or Tanuji.—Kehar ¹ had five sons; namely, Tano, Utirao, Chanar, Kaphrio, Them. All of them had offspring,² who became the heads of clans, retaining the patronymic. All were soldiers of fortune, and they conquered the lands of the Chana Rajputs; ³ but the latter revenged themselves upon Kehar, whom they attacked and slew as he was hunting.
v2.c30.t1.11
¹ Although I omit the inverted commas indicative of translation, the reader is to understand that what follows is a free interpretation of the original chronicle.
v2.c30.t1.12
² Utirao had five sons, Sorna, Sahasi, Jiva, Chako, and Ajo; their issue had the generic term of Utirao. It is thus their clans and tribes are multiplied ad infinitum, and since the skill of the genealogist (Bhat) is required to keep them clear of incestuous marriages, even such uninteresting details have some value, as they stamp their annals with authenticity.
v2.c30.t1.13
³ The tribe of Chana is now extinct.
v2.c30.t1.14
Tano succeeded. He laid waste the lands of the Barahas,⁴ and those of the Langaha of Multan. But Husain Shah advanced with the Langaha Pathans,⁵ clothed in armour with iron helms, with the men of Dudi,⁶ of Khichi ⁷ the Khokhar; ⁸ the Mogul, the Johya,⁹ the Jud,⁹ and Sayyid, all mounted on horses, to the number of ten thousand men, to attack the Jadon. They reached the territory of the Barahas, who [234] joined them, and there they encamped. Tano collected his brethren around him, and prepared for defence. During four days they defended the castle; and on the fifth the Rao ordered the gates to be thrown open, and with his son, Bijairae, sallied out sword in hand, and attacked the besiegers. The Barahas were the first to fly, and they were soon followed by the rest of the Asurs. The victors carried the spoils of the field into Tanot. As soon as the armies of Multan and Langaha were driven off, the coco-nut came from Jiju, chief of the Butas of Butaban,¹ and an alliance offensive and defensive was formed against the prince of Multan.
v2.c30.t1.15
⁴ These Indo-Scythic tribes were designated by the names of animals. The Barahas are the hogs; the Numris, the foxes; Takshaks, the snakes; Aswas or Asi, the horses, etc. [possibly an indication of totemism].
v2.c30.t1.16
⁵ These Langaha Pathans were proselytes from the Solanki Rajputs, one of the four Agnikula races. Probably they inhabited the district of Lamghan, west of the Indus. It is curious and interesting to find that the Solanki gotracharya, or ‘genealogical creed,’ claims Lohkot as their settlement. The use of the word Pathan by no means precludes their being Hindus. [The Langāhs, originally Afghāns, are now agriculturists (Rose, Glossary, iii. 30 f.).]
v2.c30.t1.17
⁶ Babur, in his valuable Autobiography, gives us the names of all the tribes he met in his passage into India, and this enumeration goes far to prove the authenticity of the early annals of the Bhattis. Babur does not mention “the men of Dudi.”
v2.c30.t1.18
⁷ The introduction of the name of this tribe here is highly important, and very interesting to those who have studied, in the Rajput bards, their early history. The bards of the Khichis give them this northern origin, and state that all Sindsagar, one of the duabs of the Panjab, belonged to them.
v2.c30.t1.19
⁸ The Khokhar is most probably the Ghakkar. Babur writes the name Gakar, a singular race, and decidedly Scythic in their habits even in his day. [The Khokhar and Ghakkar tribes are often confused (Rose ii. 554).]
v2.c30.t1.20
⁹ Of the Judis and Johyas we have already spoken as inhabiting the range called in the native annals Jadu-ka-dang, and by Babur “the hill of Jud,” skirting the Behat. The position of Bahara is laid down in that monument of genius and industry, the Memoir of Rennel (who calls it
v2.c30.t1.21
¹ Butaban, probably from *vana*, pronounced in the dialect *ban*, the ‘wild’ or ‘forest’ of Buta.
v2.c30.t1.22
Tano had five sons, Bijairae, Makar, Jaitang, Alan, and Rakecha. The second son, Makar, had issue Maipa, who had two sons, Mohola and Dakao, the latter of whom excavated the lake known by his name. His issue became carpenters (Sutar), and are to this day known as the Makar Sutar.²
v2.c30.t1.23
² Illegitimate children can never overcome this natural defect amongst the Rajputs. Thus we find among all classes of artisans in India, some of royal but spurious descent. [This is a good instance of high-caste blood in artisan castes; see Russell, *Tribes and Castes of Central Provinces*, ii. 200.]
v2.c30.t1.24
The third son, Jaitang, had two sons, Ratansi and Chohar. The first repaired the ruined city of Bikampur.³ Chohar had two sons, Kola and Girraj, who founded the towns of Kolasar and Girrajsar.³
v2.c30.t1.25
³ These towns and lakes are well known, but have been seized by Bikaner. See Map. [Bikampur, 95 miles N.E. of Jaisalmer city.]
v2.c30.t1.26
The fourth son, Alan, had four sons, Deosi, Tirpal, Bhaoni, and
v2.c30.t1.27
Bheera), in 32° N. and 72° 10′ E.; and by Elphinstone in 32° 10′, but a whole degree further to the east, or 73° 15′. This city, so often mentioned in the Yadu-Bhatti annals as one of their intermediate places of repose, on their expulsion from India and migration to Central Asia, has its position minutely pointed out by the Emperor Babur (p. 259), who, in his attack on the hill tribes of Jats, Gujars, Ghakkars, etc., adjoining Kashmir, “expelled Hati Guker from Behreh, on the Behut River, near the cave temples of Gar-kotri at Bikrum,” of which the able annotator remarks, that as well as those of But Bamian, they were probably Buddhist. Babur (p. 294) also found the Jats masters of Sialkot, most likely the Salpur of the Inscription (p. 916 above), conquered from a Jat prince in the twelfth century by the Patan prince, and presumed to be the Salbahanpur founded by the fugitive Yadu prince of Gajni [see p. 1183 above].
v2.c30.t1.28
Rakecha. The descendants of Deosi became Rabaris (who rear camels),¹ and the issue of Rakecha became merchants (Banias), and are now classed amongst the Oswal tribe.²
v2.c30.t1.29
¹ [The Rabāris say that they were created by Siva to take care of the first camel which Pārvati formed for her amusement (Census Report, Mārwār, 1891, ii. 157). Rose (Glossary, iii. 269) writes Rahbāri, probably Persian rahwār, ‘active.’]
v2.c30.t1.30
² The Oswal is the richest and most numerous of the eighty-four mercantile tribes of India, and is said to amount to one hundred thousand families. They are called ‘Oswal’ from their first settlement, the town of Osian. They are all of pure Rajput birth, of no single tribe, but chiefly Puars, Solankis, and Bhattis. All profess the Jain tenets, and it is a curious fact, though little known, that the pontiffs of that faith must be selected from the youth of Osian. The wealthy bankers and merchants of these regions scattered throughout India, are all known under one denomination, Marwari, which is erroneously supposed to apply to the Jodhpur territory, whereas, in fact, it means belonging to the desert. It is singular that the wealth of India should centre in this region of comparative sterility.
v2.c30.t1.31
Tano having, by the interposition of the goddess Bijaiseni, discovered a hidden treasure, erected a fortress, which he named Bijnot;³ and in this he placed a statue of the goddess, on the 13th, the enlightened part of the month Margsir, the Rohini Nakshatra, S. 813 (A.D. 757). He died after ruling eighty years.
v2.c30.t1.32
³ See Map.
v2.c30.t1.33
Bijairāē.—Bijairae succeeded in S. 870 (A.D. 814). He commenced his reign with the tika-daur against his old enemies, the Barahas, whom he defeated and plundered. In S. 892, he had a son by the Buta queen, who was called Deoraj. The Barahas and Langahas once more united to attack the Bhatti prince; but they were defeated [235] and put to flight. Finding that they could not succeed by open warfare, they had recourse to treachery. Having, under pretence of terminating this long feud, invited young Deoraj to marry the daughter of the Baraha chief, the Bhattis attended, when Bijairae and eight hundred of his kin and clan were massacred. Deoraj escaped to the house of the Purohit (of the Barahas, it is presumed), whither he was pursued. There being no hope of escape, the Brahman threw the Brahmanical thread round the neck of the young prince, and in order to convince his pursuers that they were deceived as to the object of their search, he sat down to eat with him from the same dish.⁴ Tanot was invested and taken, and nearly every soul in it put to the sword, so that the very name of Bhatti was for a while extinct.
v2.c30.t1.34
⁴ [Such tales are common, and generally imply a flaw in the pedigree.]
v2.c30.t1.35
Rāo Deorāj.—Deoraj remained for a long time concealed in the territory of the Barahas; but at length he ventured to Buta, his maternal abode, where he had the happiness to find his mother, who had escaped the massacre at Tanot. She was rejoiced to behold her son’s face, and “ waved the salt over his head,” then threw it into the water, exclaiming, “ Thus may your enemies melt away!” Soon tired of a life of dependence, Deoraj asked for a single village, which was promised; but the kin of the Buta chief alarmed him, and he recalled it, and limited his grant to such a quantity of land as he could encompass by the thongs cut from a single buffalo’s hide; and this, too, in the depth of the desert. For this expedient he was indebted to the architect Kaikeya, who had constructed the castle of Bhatner.¹ Deoraj immediately commenced erecting a [236] place of strength, which he called after himself Deogarh, or Derawar,¹ on Monday, the 5th of the month Magh (sudi), the Pushya Nakshatra, S. 909.
v2.c30.t1.36
¹ This deception practised by the Bhatti chief to obtain land on which to erect a fortress is not unknown in other parts of India, and in more remote regions. Bhatner owes its name to this expedient, from the division (bantna) of the hide. The etymology of Calcutta is the same, but should be written Khalkata, from the cuttings of the hide (khal). Byrsa, the castle of Carthage, originates from the same story. If there existed any affinity between the ancient Pali languages of India and the Punic or Phoenician (as the names of its princes and their adjuncts of bal would indicate), and the letters B and Ch were as little dissimilar in Punic as in Sanskrit, then Byrsa would become charsa, ‘ hide ’ or ‘ skin,’ which might have originated the capital of the African Mauritania, as of the Indian Maruthan. Thus Maroco may be from Maruka, of or belonging to Maru, the desert, also probably the origin of the Merv of Iran. The term Moor may likewise be corrupted from Mauri, an inhabitant of Maruka, while the Sahariya of our Indian desert is the brother in name and profession of the Saracen of Arabia, from Sahra, a desert, and zadan, to assault. The Nomadic princes of Mauritania might therefore be the Pali or shepherd kings of Maruthan, the great African desert. And who were these Philita or Pali kings of Barbary and Egypt? It is well known that the Berbers who inhabited Abyssinia and the south coast of the Red Sea, migrated to the northern coast, not only occupying it, as well as Mount Atlas, but pushing their tribes far into the grand sahra, or desert. To those colonists, that coast owes its name of Barbary. From the days of Solomon and his contemporary Shishak, an intimate communication subsisted between the eastern coast of Africa and India; and I have already hazarded the opinion, that we must look to this coast of Aethiopia and Abyssinia for the Lanka of the Rameses (Rameswar) of India; and from the former country the most skilful archaeologists assert that Egypt had her mythology, and more especially that mystery—the prominent feature of both systems—the Phallic rites, or worship of the lingam. Berber, according to Bruce, means a shepherd, and as ber is a sheep in the language of India, Berber is a shepherd in the most literal sense, and consequently the synonym of Pali. It has been asserted that this race colonized these coasts of Africa from India about the time of
v2.c30.t1.37
¹ Deorawal is in the map; it was one of the points of halt in Elphinstone’s mission to Kabul. This discloses to us the position of the Buta territory, and as astronomical data are given, those inclined to prove or disprove the Bhatti chronology have ample means afforded.
v2.c30.t1.38
Soon as the Buta chief heard that his son-in-law was erecting, not a dwelling, but a castle, he sent a force to raze it. Deoraj despatched his mother with the keys to the assailants, and invited
v2.c30.t1.39
Amenophis, and that they are the Hyksos, or ‘shepherd-kings,’ who subjugated Egypt. On this account a comparison of the ancient architectural remains of Abyssinia and Aethiopia with those of the ancient Hindus is most desirable. It is asserted, and with appearance of truth, that the architecture of the Pyramids is distinct from the Pharaonic, and that they are at once Astronomic and Phallic. In India, the symbolic pinnacle surmounting the temples of the sun-god are always pyramidal. If the forthcoming history of the Berbers should reveal the mystery of their first settlements in Abyssinia, a great object would be attained; and if search were made in the old cave-temples of that coast, some remains of the characters they used might aid in tracing their analogy to the ancient Pali of the East; an idea suggested by an examination of the few characters found in the grand desert inhabited by the Tuaregs, which have a certain resemblance to the Punic, and to the unknown characters attributed to the Indo-Scythic tribes of India, as on their coins and cave-temples. Wide asunder as these regions, the mind that will strive to lessen the historical separation may one day be successful, when the connexion between Aethiopia (qu. from aditya and contracted ait, the Sun ?) and Surashtra, ‘the land of the Sun,’ or Syria of India, may become more tangible. Ferishta (vide Briggs’ translation, vol. iv. p. 402), quoting original authorities, says, “the inhabitants of Selandip, or the island of Ceylon, were accustomed to send vessels to the coast of Africa, to the Red Sea, and Persian Gulf, from the earliest ages, and Hindu pilgrims resorted to Mecca and Egypt for the purpose of paying adoration to the idols. It is related also that this people trading from Ceylon became converts to the true faith at so early a period as the first caliphs”; all which confirms the fact of early intercourse between Egypt and India.—See Vol. II. p. 702. [It is unnecessary to criticize in detail the etymologies suggested in this note, a good instance of the Author’s manner. The etymology of Calcutta is unknown, the most recent suggestion being that it is Khālkata, ‘a place where a flood cut a creek’ (Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 2nd ed. 146; Hoernle, JASB, 1898, p. 48 f.; K. Blechynden, Calcutta Past and Present, 1905, p. 5). Bhatner means ‘city of the Bhattis.’ Berber is either Greek βάρβαροι, or a tribal term, Barabara; that of Aethiopia is unknown (EB, 11th ed. iii. 764, ix. 845). The story of fixing the limits of a territory by riding round it or by encircling it with strips of hide, as in the story of Carthage, is common in India (Bradley-Birt, Chota Nagpore, 16 f.; Brett, Chhattisgarh Gazetteer, i. 192; BG, xiii. Part i. 169, and many others.]
v2.c30.t1.40
the leaders to receive the castle and his homage; when the chief men, to the number of a hundred and twenty, entered, they were inveigled, under pretence of consultation, ten at a time, and each party put to death and their bodies thrown over the wall. Deprived of their leaders, the rest took to flight.
v2.c30.t1.41
Soon after, the prince was visited by his patron, the Jogi who had protected him amongst the Barahas, and who now gave him the title of Siddh.¹ This Jogi, who possessed the art of transmuting metals, lodged in the same house where Deoraj found protection on the massacre of his father and kindred. One day, the holy man had gone abroad, leaving his jarjarikakantha, or ‘tattered doublet,’ in which was the Raskumbha, or ‘elixir-vessel,’ a drop of which having fallen on the dagger of Deoraj and changed it to gold, he decamped with both, and it was by the possession of this he was enabled to erect Derawar. The Jogi was well aware of the thief whom he now came to visit; and he confirmed him in the possession of the stolen property, on one condition, that he should become his chela and disciple, and, as a token of submission and fidelity, adopt the external symbols of the Jogi. Deoraj assented, and was invested with the Jogi robe of ochre.² He placed the mudra ³ in his ear, the little horn round his neck, and [237] the bandage (langota) about his loins; and with the gourd (khopra) in his hand, he perambulated the dwellings of his kin, exclaiming, Alakh! Alakh! ⁴ The gourd was filled with gold and pearls; the title of Rao was abandoned for that of Rawal; ⁵ the tika was made on his forehead; and exacting a pledge that these rites of inauguration should be continued to the latest posterity, the Baba Rata (for such was the Jogi’s name) disappeared.
v2.c30.t1.42
¹ ‘One who has attained beatitude.’
v2.c30.t1.43
² Called geru; garments coloured with this dye are worn by all classes of mendicants.
v2.c30.t1.44
³ The mudra is a round prickly seed worn by the ascetics as ear-rings.
v2.c30.t1.45
⁴ The Supreme Being; the universal and One God.
v2.c30.t1.46
⁵ Rawal [rājakula, ‘of the royal house’] is still the title of the princes of Jaisalmer, as it once was that of the Mewar house.
v2.c30.t1.47
Deoraj determined to wreak his revenge on the Barahas, and he enjoyed it even “to stripping the scarfs from the heads of their females.” On his return to Derawar, he prepared for an attack on Langaha, the heir of which was then on a marriage expedition at Alipur. There, Deoraj attacked and slew a thousand of them, the rest henceforth acknowledged his supremacy. The Langahas were gallant Rajputs.
Linked texts (1)
- Inscription (EC 9 Bn 108) — Tamil