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History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c21.s1: (1) Gujar Chāpas of Bhinmal

History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c21.s1

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(1) Gujar Chāpas of Bhinmal

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We will now turn to the history of the remaining kingdoms to the west of Kanauj noticed by Hiuen Tsang. And the first among them was the Gujar kingdom of Bhinmal in Rajputana. We have discussed the question of the race of Gurjaras in a note. We have shown there that they cannot but be treated as distinctly Aryan. Their long heads, their fine noses (finer even than those of Parisians, vide Sir H. Risley), their tall stature are too strong ethnological characteristics declaring unequivocally their Aryan origin, to be got rid of by the imaginary theory of Mr. R. D. Bhandarkar who would assign them to a foreign or Scythic stock supposed to be Khazar. And Sir V. Smith himself admits that there is no historical evidence to support the surmise that the Gurjaras at any time came to India. "The Gurjaras are believed to have entered India, either along with or soon after the white Huns; but there is nothing to show what part of Asia they came from or to what race they belonged." (V. Smith's Early History 3rd Edn. p. 412). A similar view is expressed by him in his paper in J. R. A. S. 1908 and also 1909. The only reason for such a surmise is the fact that the name 'Gujar' is not met with before the 6th century A. D. and that in Bāṇa's Harsha Charita the Gujars are said to have been defeated by Pratāpavardhana along with the Huns. There can be nothing more unsatisfactory than this. The name Gurjara is undoubtedly not yet found in any work before the 6th century. But does that prove that it did not exist or that the name had not been in use before? Absence of mention is no proof whatever of non-existence. And have we found all the inscriptions or records before the 6th century and have we got all books that were written before that period? It would be ridiculous to suggest, much more to believe this.

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Secondly Bāṇa's Harsha Charita says that Pratāpavardhana defeated the Huns, the Gujars, the Mālavas, the Sindhus and many others. Does that mean that all these people were Huns or came along with or after them? There is an unaccountable tendency in antiquarians of India to assign foreign and Scythic origin to each and every forward people found in Indian history. Thus the Jats and even the Rajputs are assigned a foreign and a Scythic origin. If the Jats, the Gujars and the Rajputs with their clearly Aryan features are foreigners and Scythians where are the Indo-Aryans, those people who spoke the Aryan Sanskrit or Vedic language, who according to the Vedas, and the Epics supported by the Avesta came to and settled in the Panjab and Rajputana? Have they disappeared? The lower strata in these parts are Dravidian by their ethnic characteristics and if the Jats, Gujars, Rajputs and the Brahmins are foreigners-Greek, Śaka or Hūna, where indeed are the Indo-Aryans so famous in the Vedas, the Mahābhārata and the Manu Smṛiti? We may conclude therefore that the ethnic characteristics of the Jats, the Gujars and the Rajputs viz. their long heads, their fine noses and their tall statures are undeniably Aryan and that there is nothing in history which suggests or proves that they came from outside India in historic times.

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The Gujars like the Jats are the ancient Vedic Aryan Vaiśyas; and that explains why their names are not met with in ancient records before the fifth or sixth century. For such ancient scanty historical records as we possess concern themselves chiefly with kings and kingly families and rarely mention the common people. In the third century A. D. the Vaiśyas for the first time came into prominence because (most Kshatriya kingly families being killed or driven further south) many Vaiśya families took to the profession of arms against the foreign invaders of Scythic origin. The Guptas thus were Vaiśyas who first opposed the Yue-chi and latterly opposed the Huns. It seems that when the Huns first invaded India and founded a kingdom at Sialkot, the Gujars moved down into Rajputana, the sandy deserts of which have always afforded shelter to Aryans of the Panjab and the middle country when oppressed and dispossessed by foreigners. That seems to be the reason why the Gurjaras came into prominence about the time of the Huns. They moved from the Panjab into Rajputana and founded a kingdom at Bhinmal about the beginning of the sixth century. They even sent off-shoots further southwards and we find the Gurjara kingdom of Broach founded by Dadda at about the same time. These two kingdoms were found in a flourishing condition by Hiuen Tsang. Pratāpavardhana conquered the Gurjaras not because they were Huns or foreigners; he conquered them as every conquering hero in India did who conquered both foreigners and Indians in his digvijaya. The Gurjaras of Bhinmal were to his south-west and he must have established his overlordship over them also. Yet the Gurjara kingdom of Bhinmal was strong and even Harsha did not entirely dispossess the Gurjaras. They were probably only in nominal subjection to him as we have already stated. And they not only remained strong but in the next century grew stronger and subdued Kanauj itself.

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Who was the king in the days of Harsha and what was his family and caste? We have already said that he probably was son to one Vyāghramukha mentioned by Brahmagupta the famous astronomer who composed his well-known Siddhānta at Bhinmal in 628 A. D. Now this Brahmagupta states that the king belonged to the Chāpa dynasty.[*] The Chāpas or Chapotkatas are well-known Kshatriyas mentioned in inscriptions of the 7th and 8th centuries (see Chālukya Navasari grant already described). They hereafter established the kingdom of Gujarat at Anhillapattana as we shall have to relate in our next volume. This king then was a Kshatriya according to Brahmagupta and he was equally a Kshatriya according

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∗ Dikshit's Marathi history of Indian Astronomy p. 217. The verse quoted by him from Brahma Siddhānta is as follows :—

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श्रीचापवंशतिलके श्रीव्याघ्रमुखे नृपे शकनृपाणाम् ।
पञ्चाशत्संयुक्तैः शतैः पञ्चभिरतीतैः !!

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to Hiuen Tsang. "He was a Kshatriya by caste and a young man noted for wisdom and a firm believer in Buddhism." Now this fact is a puzzle to European scholars who look upon Gurjaras as foreigners but they twist it into an argument for their own theory. They argue that not only were the Gujars foreigners and of Scythian origin admitted into the Hindu fold but that within a hundred years of their coming into India their kings were admitted to be true Kshatriyas!!! This explanation however is untenable. It is possible for any person or people to be admitted into Hinduism which with its peculiar institution of caste can easily admit anybody in its fold without sacrificing the purity of existing castes but it is not possible to suppose that when everybody was opposing the detested Huns and other foreigners, when Aryan orthodox kings, according to inscriptions of that very period, were strongly enforcing caste and preventing sankara or intermixture of races, that these foreign kings could have been admitted to be Kshatriyas. This fact therefore supports our view that the Gurjaras were Hindus of ancient date and Vaiśyas and their kings the Chāpat were true Kshatriyas.

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We know very little of the history of these Chāpas from 641 A. D. when Hiuen Tsang visited Bhinmal down to about 750 A. D. The king at his time was a Buddhist but it is probable that after his death, as in the rest of India, there must have been a revival of Hinduism among the Gurjaras. They appear to have been a very powerful people and resisted the invasion of their country by the Arabs who after their conquest of Sind in 712 A. D. tried to extend their dominion and their religion to the neighbouring states of India. Bhinmal the Gurjara kingdom was undoubtedly one of such kingdoms contiguous to Sind and it appears certain that the Gurjaras eventually defeated the Arabs. Along with this event there appears to have been a change of dynasty in the ruling family and the Pratihāras appear to come in about 750 A.D. displacing the old Chāpas whose rule seems to have extended to the usual period of dynasties i. e. about two centuries. The history of the Gurjara Pratihāras belongs to the second portion of our period and will be related in our next volume.

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(2) THE VARDHANAS OF MOLAPO OR WESTERN MALWA.

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We have already given the history of the other Gurjara kingdom to the south at Broach; and we will now proceed to describe the history of Hiuen Tsang's Molapo or Western Malwa. This kingdom belonged as we have seen to Yaśodharman Viṣṇuvardhana of the Mandsaur inscription In our surmise this name-ending Vardhana shows that he was a Vaiśya like the Guptas. His great exploit was that he defeated Mihirakula the Hun. Now we have already quoted the sentence in Chandra's grammar अजयन्-जटों हूणान् "the Jarta conquered the Huns". If we apply this sentence to Yaśodharman and there is none else to whom it can well be applied, we may surmise that he was a Jarta or Jat from the Panjab. In fact like the Gurjaras of Bhinmal we may suppose the Jats from the Panjab to have migrated to Malwa (which like Rajputana is a favourite land with migrators) to take refuge from the incursions of the Huns and these Jats in Malwa getting strong under Yaśodharman inflicted in 528 A. D. a signal defeat on the Huns who had overrun their motherland the Panjab.

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A grandson or great grandson of this king was on the throne when Hiuen Tsang visited Western Malwa. He was a devout Buddhist and a Buddha temple near the city was being built for several generations. We may take it from the Rājatarangiṇī that Yaśodharman's son named Silāditya (name mentioned by Hiuen Tsang also) being a Buddhist was assailed by his neighbours and dispossessed. Pravarsena of Kashmir about 540 A. D. re-established this son on the throne of his father, and took away from him the throne of Kashmir which his father Yaśodharman had brought away. This dynasty, therefore, had certainly lasted from about 500-641 A. D. the date of Hiuen Tsang's visit. What became of it after Harsha we are not in a position to state. The history of Malwa as a whole is obscure until we come to the Paramāra dynasty; but we may state that Western Malwa was on the border between Gujarat and Central India and was often changing hands. That it was entirely under Valabhis for some time hereafter is certain from grants of Valabhi kings which gave lands even near Mandsaur to donees. Apparently therefore, when Harsha's empire fell Molapo passed into the power of the stronger Valabhi kingdom.

Cites (5)