History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v2.c29.6

v2.c29.6

Like Shivaji, Bappā Rāwal was an intensely religious man and he equally hated the new invaders of India who were cow-killers. From their base in Sind which they had conquered in 712 A. D., the Arabs had begun to overrun India south and east. They had attacked the kingdom of the Moris of Chitore who were, as stated in Volume I, the relatives of Sāhasi king of Sind and who had even laid claim to that kingdom when usurped by Chacha. To traverse deserts was not a difficult task for Arabs and they had begun to harass Chitore with great force. We actually find it recorded in the inscription of the Navasāri Chālukya grant of 739-740 A. D. (Bombay Gazetteer Vol. I part I, p. 465) that the Arabs had attacked the Maurya (necessarily of Chitore) along with Chavoṭaka, Kachchha and other states. Bappā Rāwal was a great devotee of Śiva whose image of Ekalinga was near Nāgadā and a disciple of the noted Śaiva sage who lived there named Hārita. We need not believe the story given in the Achalagada and other inscriptions that Hārita foretold Bappā’s greatness and gave him the golden anklet indicative of sovereignty in return for his devoted services to himself. But we may surmise that Hārita saw the greatness inherent in his disciple and advised him to go to Chitore, enter the king’s service and fight with the infidels, the breakers of idols and killers of cows. Bappā accordingly took service with his clansmen and his Bhils with the Mori king (perhaps he was already a Sāmanta of that king) and soon rose to importance and was chosen as the leader of the forces deputed to repel the recurring Arab invasions. Like Charles Martel, the Mayor of the Palace at Paris, Bappā Rāwal was probably the commander-in-chief of the Mori forces opposed to the Arabs and like Charles Martel Bappā seems to have achieved a signal victory over them. Naturally his renown was now greater than ever. We do not believe the legend that the Sardars of Chitore hereafter revolted and deposing the Mori king of Chitore placed the crown on Bappā’s head. Bappā was too religiously minded to depose his king; although such an event is not unlikely. Like Charles Martel’s son Pepin who, setting aside Childeric, the puppet king of the Merovingian line on the throne of Paris, himself became king of the Franks, Bappā might have, from the renown and power which he had acquired by his signal defeat of the Arabs, set aside the decrepit Mori king; but we prefer to believe that the then Mori king of Chitore died childless like Sāhasi in Sind or like Shahu at Satara in Maratha history, and Bappā became the king of Chitore like Chacha in Sind or the Peshwa Nanasaheb in Poona. Whatever the nature of the revolution, it is certain that the Mori line ceased and Bappā the conqueror of the Mahomedans founded an illustrious line of kings at Chitore, a line which subsists to this day after twelve centuries. This was also like what happened in France where Charles Martel became the progenitor, through his grand-son Charles the Great, of a renowned and long continued line of kings.