History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v2.c28.23

v2.c28.23

Now it will be a revelation to many to know that this story is not only a poet's fancy but further arises from a misconception of even that fancy. For as a matter of fact it seems that even Chand himself did not wish to represent that these Kṣatriyas were *newly created* Kṣatriyas. For epigraphic evidence unequivocally proves that these four or at least three of these, in the ninth century A. D., represented themselves as and were believed to be descended from the solar and lunar Vamśas. Thus the Pratihāra clan which established its empire at Kanauj which Dr. Bhandarkar and others strive to show to be Gujar in origin and therefore foreign is distinctly said in a stone inscription of the 10th century to belong to the solar line. This Gwalior Bhoja inscription is very important in this connection and states that the imperial Pratihāras of Kanuaj were descended from Lakṣmaṇa brother of Rāma, the hero of the solar race, Lakṣmaṇa being Rama's Pratihāra or door-keeper. As already stated we attach no value to such traditions except in so far as they represent the beliefs current at particular times. This tradition proves that the Pratihāra clan was in the ninth century treated as solar in race. How can Chand then in the 12th century represent these Pratihāras as Agnikulas? Similarly the Chāhamānas are also said in records previous to Chand's Pṛthvīrāj Rāsā distinctly to belong to the same solar line. The Harsha stone inscription (Ep. Ind. II. p. 119) gives the line of the Chāhamānas from one Gūvaka and to our mind clearly conveys that this clan is solar in descent. (तन्मुक्त्यर्थमुपागता रघुकुले भूचक्रवर्ती स्वयम्.) Mr. Harbilasa Sarda of Ajmere has, in his paper in R. A. S. 1903 on Pṛithvīrāj Vijaya—a poem by a contemporary poet in the Darbar of Pṛithvīrāj himself, shown that the poem describes Pṛithvīrāj as born of the solar line. Hammīra Mahākāvya again declares that the Chāhamānas were descended from the sun, as also a stone inscription in the Ajmere Museum. It is, therefore, certain that from the ninth century down even to the thirteenth and the fourteenth, the Chāhamānas were considered to belong to the solar line of Kshatriyas. The third clan Solankhī or Chālukya of Anahillapāṭaṇ is, in epigraphic records described as belonging to the lunar line. It must be remembered that the Chālukyas of Badāmī were different from these. Here it is sufficient to state that these Chālukyas belong to the Bhāradvāja gotra and are so described even in the Pṛithvīrāj Rāsā. Now this gotra of these Chālukyas is given in an inscription of the Haihayas of Chedi. The Bilhari stone inscription (Ep. Ind. I. p. 253-9) states that Keyūravarsha Haihaya married Nohalādevī, daughter of Avanivarman Chālukya of the Bhāradvāja gotra. This inscription which has been assigned to the beginning of the 11th century A. D. gives a different version about the origin of these Chālukyas from that of the southern Chālukyas given by Bilhaṇa as also by Eastern Chālukya kings and states that the first ancestor of these Chālukyas was created out of the water in his handful by Droṇa Bhāradvāja for killing Drupada, and hence belonged to his gotra. As Bhāradvāja belonged to the lunar line, the Chālukyas of Bhāradvāja gotra also belonged to the same line. Now since in this inscription, the Chālukyas were believed to belong to the lunar line and were also believed to be created by Droṇa, how can Chand in the 12th century represent these same Chālukyas as created by Vaśiṣṭha from his fire?