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History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c34.s5: Note 1—Rathods and Gaharwars.

History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c34.s5

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Note 1—Rathods and Gaharwars.

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The tradition of the Rathods of Jodhpur is that their ancestor Sihaji who first came to Marwad was a grand-nephew (some say a great-grand-son) of Jayachand and the Gaharwars of U. P. whose chief representative at present is the Raja of Kantit in Mirzapur District consider themselves the direct descendants of Jaichand. Now when the family name Gāhadavāla was actually found mentioned in some of the grants of the kings of Kanauj, the question was discussed whether the Rathods of Jodhpur and the Gaharwars of U. P. are really one clan and were descended from the Gāhadavāla kings of Kanauj. Dr. Hoernle in I. A. XIV discussed this subject and expressed a doubt for two or three reasons. The first is that the gotra of the Gaharwars is Kāśyapa and that of the Rathods is Gautama. Secondly, these two clans intermarry. And thirdly, Gaharwars are despised as not of good family by other Rajputs. Although these facts may or may not be true, they do not go to prove that the Rathods of Jodhpur are not descended from the Gāhadavālas of Kanauj as tradition asserts for the following reasons.

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In the first place, in the oldest inscription found of Chandradeva himself, the race of the family is given as the solar race (Asīdāsītadyuti-vaṃśajataḥ &c.) and Chandradeva gives his name as Chadrāditya in his next two inscriptions. The Rathods of Jodhpur consider themselves all along as solar race Rajputs. (Strangely enough the Gaharwars look upon themselves as lunar race Rajputs though descended from Jaichand). They are, therefore, distinct from the Rāṣṭrakūṭa kings of Malkhed described in Volume II who plainly were lunar race Rajputs. We have already noted that their name Rāṣṭrakūṭa is an official position name meaning head of the country and is used as such in Eastern Chālukya inscriptions (See Vol. II p. 144) and the name may be borne by different clans and even castes like the modern names Deshpande or Joshi. This Rāṣṭrakūṭa clan which ruled in the north is, therefore, distinct from that which ruled in the south, though the former may have originally belonged to the Deccan as Jodhpur tradition asserts and Gāhaḍa may have been a town in the Deccan somewhere. Secondly, let us see what the name of Gāhadavāla means and how it is mentioned in the documents of these kings of Kanauj. The modern name Gaharwar of which the original form Gāhadavāla is known only recently has been fancifully explained as meaning gharbāhar (out of home) or grahavara (subduer of the planet Saturn, Mirzapur Gazetteer p. 204); but now that we have to explain the original form Gāhadavāla, taking a hint from the similar name Jammuwāl among Kshatriyas and Agarwal among Vaiśyas we think that Gāhadavāla means belonging to the town of Gāhaḍa. It seems thus to be not a clan name but a family name based on town of residence. Probably the name was given to distinguish this family of Rathods from other families and the name was a popular one. In most of the inscriptions of the Gāhadavālas of Kanauj it is not given but simply the vamśa viz. the solar, is mentioned, as noted before even in the oldest inscription of Chandradeva. The name Gāhadavāla is found in the inscriptions which were written when Govindachandra was a young man acting as Yuvarāja under Madanapāla. It is curious to note that these inscriptions depart from the settled form of the inscriptions of these Kanauj kings. Instead of beginning with invoking blessings of Śrī, they begin with a salutation to Dāmodara and say that in the Gāhadavāla vamśa was born king Mahīyala (I. A. XIV p. 103 and E. I. II p. 358) or Mahītala (I.A. XVIII p. 15. Probably here also the reading should have been Mahīyal which is the more popular form of the name). These inscriptions were drawn up in the Pāñchāla country and use the popular name of the family Gāhadavāla. Apparently it was not the clan name of the family and it has not been used in records drawn up in the usual style adopted by the court.

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But the strongest reason which appears to prove to our mind conclusively, that Gāhadavāla was not the clan name of the family, is that this name does not appear in the list of the 36 royal clans of India accepted throughout the Rajput world. When this list was made and the number 36 fixed can be surmised with tolerable certainty. We have already shown in Volume II (p. 22) that Kalhaṇa who wrote his Rājatarangiṇī in 1154 A. D. mentions the number 36 of the royal clans of Rajputs. The list must have been made before this date. Secondly as the list contains the name of the Kachhawāhas who came to the front about the end of the 10th century, it is clear that the enumeration was made in the 11th century A. D. Why such an enumeration was made we shall have to discuss later on when describing the social condition of India in this sub-period; but we may state here that while in the preceding sub-period (800-1000) caste was fluid and intermarriages between the Indian castes on Anuloma basis took place (Vol. II p. 179), such intermarriages ceased in the third sub-period (1000-1200) and every caste began to consolidate itself and introduced rigid rules of marriage. It was natural that the Rajputs also should consolidate their sub-caste at this time and we are, therefore, doubly sure that this enumeration of 36 clans was made during the 11th century. Nay we even surmise from the very interesting verse noted later on in one of these inscriptions of Govindachandra (I. A. XVII p.

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15 made as Yuvaraja, which contains more popular ideas than any other inscription quoted in the appendix), that the consolidation of the solar and lunar race Kshatriya clans must have taken place in the orthodox revival under Chandra the first Gāhadavāla king. Now as the enumeration of 36 families was made at this time, if Gāhadavāla had been a clan name, it would most assuredly have been enumerated in the list separately. The supposition may be made that the enumeration was made before the rise of the Gāhadavālas of Kanauj, say, in the first half of the 11th century and it is hence that the name Gāhadavāla does not appear in the list. But surely Chanda Bardāi recited the names of the 36 royal families at the time of Prithvīrāja and Jaichand when the Gāhadavālas were in their glory, and most assuredly the name could not have been omitted from this list of Chand. It was impossible that such a powerful Rajput family as that of Jaichand should have been omitted by Chand when even minor families found mention in the list. We bold this list in the Rāsā to be the oldest we have (Vol. II p. 22); but supposing that the Rāsā is a fabrication throughout of the sixteenth century A. D. (we think it is an amplification of an original nucleus made about that time) and that Gaharwars being not considered good Rajputs were omitted in the list of 36, we have still two other lists, viz.

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the Jain list and the Kumārapāla-charita lists given by Tod which are very old but later than the rise of the Gāhadavālas, as the date of Kumārapāla, we have seen, is 1143-1173 and Kumārapāla-charita must be necessarily later. But these lists also do not mention the Gaharwars as a separate clan. In the days of Jaichand and at least a century or two later the Gāhadavālas must have been famous in India and their name could not have been omitted from the lists, which again had ample opportunity to mention their name as the names enumerated therein fall short of 36, the accepted number. Indeed in the Rambhā-manjarī drama by Nayachandra dated about 1400 A. D. in which Jaichand is the hero, in the very first epithet applied to him by the Sūtradhāra we have a reference to this list. Jaichand is said to be the forehead ornament of the 36 royal clans* of Ikshvākuvaṃśa. It is, therefore, certain that Gāhadavāla was not the name of a clan but of a family based on the town of residence. To what principal clan did these Gāhadavāla kings belong? Very probably to the Rathod clan whose name is included in the list of 36. There is, in our view, a strong indication of this in the Badaun Rāshṭrakūṭa inscription the date of which has not been ascertained but which certainly is anterior to the fall of Jaichand; as it mentions that one king of the line, Madanapāla, made incursions of Hamīra impossible (See E. I. I, p. 64).

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Now this inscription opens with† the expression "protected by the arms of the kings belonging to the famous and Akhila (all-pervading) Rāshṭrakūṭa clan". This suggests that the Rāshṭrakūṭa kula consisted of many branches and they protected or reigned over the whole of Pānchāla which included Kanauj. Indeed the kingdom of Kanauj was always known as the kingdom of Pānchāla (Al-Beruni states that Kanauj was famous for Pāṇḍavas meaning the Pānchālas who were their foremost supporters and Draupadi belonged to their country). The word Akhila in this verse would be meaningless if it did not refer to the other Rāshṭrakūṭa branches ruling in Pānchāla itself. This is a very old authority dating from before the last days of Jaichand to hold that Jaichand was also a Rathod as he is everywhere represented to be in later history. And there is no other family among the 36 clans to which the Gāhadavālas have been assigned as a branch in any tradition or record and we may conclude that the Gaharwars of U P. and the Rathods of Jodhpur are one clan viz. Rāṣṭrakūṭa.

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∗ षट्त्रिंशद्राजन्यवंशभालस्थलललायमानश्रीक्ष्वाकुवंशविभूषणस्य

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† प्रख्याताखिलराष्ट्रकूटकुलेजक्ष्मापालदोः पालिता। पांचालाभिवेशभूषणकरी वोदामयूता पुरी।।

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The reasons which are alleged as going against this conclusion are according to our view, of no great validity. The gotra of Gaharwars is now no doubt Kāśyapa, but it is likely that the Gāhadavāla direct descendants being deprived of their greatness could not maintain regular Purohits as kings do and can, and gradually lost memory of their gotra. When on rare occasions the gotrotohāra becomes necessary, to those who do not recollect their gotra, the Kāśyapa gotra is usually assigned. Or more probably the Gaharwars took other Purohitas in their days of adversity and following the dictum of Vijnāneśvara that Kshatriyas have no gotras of their own but have to take the gotras of their Purohitas adopted a new gotra, viz. Kāśyapa. Perhaps the descendants of Sihaji in Jodhpur may have adopted a new gotra (Gautama) similarly, the original gotra of the Gāhadavāls being Kāśyapa; but the probability is otherwise for in the Rambhā-manjarī drama of Nayachandra king Jaichand addresses his queen as 'ornament of the Kāśyapa gotra'. (Among Rajput kings it is usual to address queens by their paternal gotra or kula as Chauhāni &c.). The inscriptions of the Gāhadavālas do not unfortunately mention their gotra; indeed inscriptions of the Rajput families of the time do not usually mention their gotras. We personally made careful enquiries at Kanauj to find out, from some Brahmin family, this gotra or to discover some old paper relating to the much-talked-of Rājasūya sacrifice performed by Jaichand at which the ancestors of noted Kanaujia Brahmin families acted as priests but no clue could be got to the gotra of Jaichand. The difference of gotra for the above reasons does not, in our view, invalidate the conclusion we have arrived at.

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Nor does the fact that Rathods and Gaharwars intermarry. The fact is disputed by many; but even if it is admitted, we cannot thereby suppose that they were not one clan before. Indeed some Kshatriya clans have begun to marry within the clan itself especially in the Panjab and we were told at Jammu that even in the same gotra, after 25 generations, a Smṛiti text allowed inter-marriage. Though this is incorrect, it is undeniable that inter-marriages have begun to take place in the same clan. And as Gaharwar has later become practically a separate clan being mentioned in the fourth list of Tod, such rare intermarriages might take place now and then. It may, however, be noted that the rule of exogamy is strictly observed by the Rajputs of Rajputana based on the enumeration of 36 clans though perhaps the gotra rule is not observed. Thus, for instance, the Jadejas and the Chūdāsamas intermarry though of the same gotra and both are outside the older three lists of 36 clans, being mentioned in the fourth as separate clans.

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Lastly, the suggestion that Gaharwars are looked down upon by other Rajputs is not correct. And if they are, there must be other reasons which apply to the Gaharwars of the present day. The fact now known that the ruling family of Kanauj was Gāhadavāla must finally set at rest such an idea, for Jaichand and Govindachandra and Chandra were considered best Rajputs of their days. It is suggested by Sir Vincent Smith that the Gāhadavālas were originally Bhars. There is no proof whatever of this supposition. There is an important verse* in the interesting inscription of Madanapāla-Govindchandra already noticed (I. A. XVIII p. 15) which may be quoted in this connection. The verse may be translated thus; "When the two famous races of Kshatriyas born of the Sun and the Moon were desolate, the creator thinking that the whole world is nearly void of the sound of Veda recitation inclined his mind to incarnate himself to re-establish the ways of religion as also to rehabilitate the two famous races of Kshatriyas". "Then there was born in the above family king Śrī-Chandradeva crest-jewel of kings and he dispelled the darkness caused by the insolent soldiers of the enemy". This shows that Chandra, the founder of the Gāhadavāla family, was then popularly considered as having rehabilitated the solar and lunar race Kshatriyas and the Vedic religion. It seems clear that he was looked upon as an orthodox Kshatriya who was well-versed, like Rāma, in both Veda and the Dhanurveda-vidyā. This also shows that there was a great slaughter before that time of Kshatriyas by the forces of Mahmud and his successor Masa'ud and also a great relaxation in the observance of the Vedic religion in the conduct of the remnant. Chandradeva Gāhadavāla was, therefore, properly enough looked upon as an incarnation of Brahmā himself, the first reciter of the Veda and the creator of Brahmins and Kshatriyas. It cannot, therefore, be supposed that the Gāhadavāla family of Kanauj could in those days have been looked down upon as lower grade Kshatriya; and it ought to have been enumerated among the 36 royal clans; and was in fact included under the chief clan name Rathod.

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Before closing we may mention two other inferences which arise from the above verses, viz. that in the first half of the 12th century the Kshatriya races were looked upon as only two and not three including the Agni-vamśa. The word vamśa again is used in two senses, viz. race and clan as it is used in these two senses in the above verses as also in the verses from the Rāsā quoted in Vol. II p. 22, enumerating the 36 vamśas. And thirdly at this period the theory that there are no Kshatriyas in the Kali age had not come into existence or into currency in northern India at least where this inscription was recorded wherein Brahmā is described as actually rehabilitating the solar and lunar races of Kshatriyas by incarnating himself as Chandradeva. This corroborates the view we maintained in Volume II Appendix IV p. 312-317.

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∗ प्रध्वस्ते सूर्यसोमोद्भवविदितमहाक्षत्रवंशद्वयेऽस्मिन् । उत्सन्नप्रायवेदध्वनिजगदखिलं मन्यमानः स्वयंभूः ॥ कृत्वा देहग्रहाय प्रवणमिह मनः शुद्धबुद्धिर्विनीयाम् । उद्धर्तुं धर्ममार्गात् प्रथितमिह तथा क्षत्रवंशद्वयं च ॥ वंशे तत्र ततः स एष समभूद्भूपालचूडामणिः । प्रध्वस्तोद्धतवैरिवीरतिमिरः श्रीचन्द्रदेवो नृपः ॥

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