History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c34.s5.3.3

v3.c34.s5.3.3

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).