History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c7.5

v1.c7.5

Giving up the order of Hiuen Tsang and going a little south-west we find that the next most important kingdom was Sind. The capital was beyond the Indus and it held under subjection two or three kingdoms to the west and south as far as the sea. In fine the kingdom was as extensive as the British province of Sind. Its king though powerful had been defeated by both Prabhākara and Harsha. Who this king was it is somewhat difficult to determine. He was a Śūdra by caste and a Buddhist according to Hiuen Tsang. According to the Chachanāma—a history of the conquest of Sind by the Arabs in the next or eighth century,—there ruled in Sind before Chacha, the Brahmin king, a race of kings whose ancestor was Dewaij and whose last king was Sāhasi Rai. After Sāhasi's death Chacha the Brahmin who was his chamberlain seized the throne and married his widow. When this usurpation took place we can ascertain from the Chachanāma which states that in the 11th year of the Hejira, *i. e.*, in 632 A. D. the first invasion of Sind by Mahomedans took place. "Chacha was then on the throne and 35 years of his reign had passed." The usurpation of Chacha from this statement falls in 597 A.D. He ruled forty years, *i. e.*, till 637 A. D. when his brother Chandra succeeded him and ruled for 7 years, *i. e.*, till 644 A. D. Thus in 641 A. D. when Hiuen Tsang visited the kingdom of Sind, Chandra must have been on the throne and he is said in the Chachanāma to have been a Buddhist. But he was a Brahmin and hence Hiuen Tsang's description that he was a Śūdra does not apply. It is not possible to suppose that Hiuen Tsang made a mistake. It should rather be said that the Chachanāma is mistaken, for much of it is fanciful and it is more a hearsay history for events before the conquest of Sind by the Arabs than the evidence of an eye-witness. Moreover if Chandra died in 644 A. D. his nephew Dahir must be taken to have come to throne in 644 A. D. He was the king when Sind was conquered by Mahamad Kasim in 712 A. D., a date which is certain and reliable. Dahir therefore must thus have been on the throne for 68 years, a somewhat long period. What may be surmised is that Sāhasi was still on the throne of Sind when Hiuen Tsang visited the country in 641 A.D. He appears to have been of the Maurya dynasty as the Chachanāma represents that the ruler of Chitor was his brother or distant relative. Chitor was not yet in the hands of the Sisodias but was ruled by a Maurya family of kings from whom, as the traditions of the Sisodias declare, the kingdom was seized by Bappā Rāval. The Mauryas were of course looked upon as Śūdras. It is not improbable that branches of the Maurya family sprung from Chandra Gupta and Aśoka still ruled in several places in India. We would therefore give greater weight to Hiuen Tsang's statement and hold that the king of Sind at this time was Sāhasi II and he may have been a Buddhist. It is also more consistent to suppose that it was Sāhasi II who was defeated by Harsha and not Chacha who was a peculiarly fortunate king and who extended his sway north, west and south. Chacha is said to have conquered Multan and Parvata and made his boundary conterminous with that of Kashmir. As Hiuen Tsang states that Multan was subject to Tekka and not to Sind when he visited it in 641 A.D. we may take it as a further argument to hold that he visited Sind in the time of Sāhasi II. Some place the usurpation of Chacha in 631 A.D. (see Sind Gazetteer and Gazetteer of Bahawalpur) on the authority of another Mahomedan historian, but we must place it sometime after Harsha's death, i.e., about 648 A.D. Chacha ruled for 40 years or till 688 and his brother Chandra till 695 and his son Dahir must have been on the throne for about 17 years when he was conquered by Kasim in 712 A. D.