History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s4.31

Language: English

v3.c33.s4.31.1

From here onwards we lose the guidance of the account written by Utbi, a contemporary and secretary of Mahmud and have to rely on later historians or Bakharkars who wrote two or three hundred years later. Why Utbi finishes his account here is inexplicable. There is not the smallest doubt that he lived upto the year 420 H and later for he mentions that in that year Kadhi Abdulla Said went on pilgrimage to Mecca and he also relates the controversies which raged between him and Abu Baker on his return. The translator of Utbi remarks in a foot-note here that if this year be correct Utbi must be taken to have lived longer than he is supposed to do (p. 474). Again Utbi states that Mahmud passed a long life and the translator again remarks in a foot-note that this expression would imply that Utbi lived during a greater part of Mahmud's life than is usually supposed (p. 483). It is, therefore, a puzzle why Utbi does not carry on his narrative down to the year 420 H or 1029 A. D. Probably he finishes his account with the climax attained at this time (1020 A. D.) by Mahmud's good fortune. His empire at this moment was so extensive that it reached on the north-west to the Caspian sea, including as it did Khwarism and even Georgia, while on the south-east, it touched the Sarsuti including the Panjab and Thanesar.

v3.c33.s4.31.2

He had further humbled and subjected to a yearly tribute the emperor of Northern India, at the battle on the Rahib and perhaps he had defeated and entered into friendly relations with the king of the Turks beyond the Oxus. He had finally obtained incalculable wealth from the raid on Mathura and Kanauj and human nature impelled him to expend it on a magnificent mosque at Ghazni, being incited thereto, perhaps, by the sight of the magnificent temple at Mathura "which the best architects" he said "could not have built in two hundred years." He, therefore, at this time designed and reared a splendid mosque at Ghazni, the old mosque there being built for a smaller number of people and at a time when Ghazni had but a small territory. Utbi describes the building of the grand Juma Masjid of Ghazni on which “slaves from Hind and Khorasan worked day and night and superintendents richly paid supervised from morning to evening. Trees were brought from Hind and Sind and used on the said works; mighty stones of marble, square and hexagonal, were brought from distant places. And they drew out the domed porticoes so perfectly spherical that the arch of the sky was but a myth in comparison.” They spared not the purest gold in their paintings and gilding, and crushed the bodylike idols and fastened them in the doors and walls. The Sultan commanded a closet to be constructed for his own use.

v3.c33.s4.31.3

“He commanded the fabric to be square with expanding porches and interlacing curvatures.” The pavement was made of white marble and on the sides of every court they delineated golden paintings shaded with lapis-lazuli. “Every one who saw this fabric took the finger of wonder into his mouth and said ‘Oh thou who hast beheld the mosque of Damascus and are maddened thereby and profess that no building like that is possible’ come and see the mosque of Ghazni.’” “In front there was an immense nave for great festivals and congregations in which six thousand servants might fulfil their duties.” “And he built near the precincts a college and supplied it with valuable books and rare volumes of theology and to these pure walls of instruction professors and Imams and students directed their course; and from the endowments of the college they received daily maintenance and necessaries and a salary monthly or yearly was paid to them. And during the reign of the Sultan the extent of Ghazni exceeded all cities in spacious buildings and solid edifices. And amongst other fabrics there were a thousand walled enclosures for elephants with their grooms, the suppliers of food etc. It was God who was the promoter of all this prosperity of the land.” (p. 468-469). Utbi probably finishes his narrative with a further description of the Sultan’s just rule and the rule of his younger brother in Khorasan where he was appointed by Mahmud but unfortunately where he died young.

v3.c33.s4.31.4

It is probably at this climax that Utbi ends his account which does not seem to have an abrupt end. But we at this time are unfortunately deprived of a reliable account of the subsequent doings of this great sovereign. Elliot mentions the battle of the Rahib as the thirteenth expedition and enumerates four more expeditions thereafter on the authority of Nizamuddin and Firishta. These do not mention their own authorities, yet it is probable that they had some reliable sources of information for their narrative, though we find that owing to distance of time and ignorance of localities they make many wrong statements. Utbi mentions state documents such as a register of expeditions and even memoirs written by Mahmud himself and it is probable that other contemporary writers such as Baihaki whose works are not available to us, supplied them with information. It is not, therefore, possible that these later writers give us imaginary stories though we must accept their accounts with caution and try to tally them with information available from Indian epigraphic evidence. Thus the statement of Nizamuddin that the Raja of Kanauj was killed by a Raja named Nanda for having submitted to the Sultan (Elliot II p. 63), a statement made by him from some contemporary Mahomedan writer, is borne out and supported by Chandella and Kachhapaghāta inscriptions.

v3.c33.s4.31.5

As will be related in Chandella history later on, a Chandella inscription states that Vidyādhara son of Ganda destroyed the king of Kānyakubja (E. I. I p. 222) and that in this he was assisted by Bhoja and the Kalachuri king. This combined force was led by a Kachhapaghāta king of Gwalior who was a feudatory of the Chandella king and another Kachhapaghāta chieftain of Dubhkund (in Gwalior territory) by name Arjuna is said in an inscription to have actually, when engaged in the service of king Vidyādhara, by his arrows in a great battle cut through the neck of Rājyapāla. This speaks volumes of the spirit of the Rajput kings of this time who did not like the action of Rājyapāla in submitting to a foreign king, the breaker of the idols of Mathura, and a combined army of Chandella, Paramāra, Kalachūri and Kachhapaghāta kings attacked Rājyapāla in Kanauj and killed him. Probably they returned without doing more and Trilochanapāla son of Rājyapāla succeeded him in due course at Kanauj.