History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v2.c28.s1.26

v2.c28.s1.26

The first and foremost supposed Agnikula tribe is the Pratihāra to which the Imperial Pratihāras of Kanauj belonged. Now Dr. Bhandarkar admits that they never call themselves Gujars in their inscriptions, that their names are Aryan names like Vatsarāja, Nāgabhata and so on, that they represent themselves in their inscriptions as Sūrya-Vaṁśis, that even Rājaśekhara a noted poet in their time calls them Raghukulatilakas. These facts should have induced Dr. Bhandarkar to examine carefully the arguments which appear to show them as Gujars. Instead of that, he twists these facts themselves into arguments to hold "how wonderfully soon foreign tribes were assimilated with the Hindus and were even treated as Kshatriyas and solar race Kshatriyas"!!! As a matter of fact ancient Hindus and Hindus of the 8th century A. D. too were as strongly against the amalgamation of varṇas as they are now; and Dr. Bhandarkar should rather have laid stress on these facts in order to see that the other facts which appear to show them as Gujars must be explained in another way (see p. 23 Ind. Ant. XL. 1911).