History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c35.s19: 5 Mandi and Suket.
History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c35.s19
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5 Mandi and Suket.
v3.c35.s19.1
We have already given a short history of this hill state in our first volume (pp. 379 and 380) and we give further particulars here from an article by Hutchinson and Vogel (J. Panjab VII pp. 1-4) with a few remarks of our own. This part of the Himalayan country including Kulu seems to have been an ancient kingdom, the original people therein being Kunindas or Kanets who still are the chief cultivators there. The country is visited by Tibetan Buddhists annually as they believe that the great Buddhist saint Padmasambhava resided at the Rawalsar lake in Mandi territory; the Hindus believe that Lomaśa Rishi resided at this place.
v3.c35.s19.2
The ruling family of Mandi and Suket is a Chandravanśi Rajput family with Atri as its gotra. Their names end always in the suffix sena. This has given rise, as usual, to the wrong tradition that they came from Bengal where Lakshmanasena of Lakhnauti was their last great king (1169-1198). This tradition accepted by Sir L. Griffin in his book "the Rajas of the Panjab" was, however, disbelieved by Cunningham who placed the founding of the Suket family nearly five hundred years before 1200 A. D. and Hutchinson and Vogel accept his view in their article on several grounds. Further confirmation of this view may also be found in the fact that the epigraphic records of the Sena kings of Bengal clearly state that they were Kshatriyas come from Karṇāṭaka; while the Suket-Mandi tradition is that their ancestors first ruled in Indraprastha and from there they went to Bengal and founded Lakhnauti. Local traditions founded on names are often unhistorical and have to be given up and in the same way as we gave up the tradition about Pathānias having driven Pathans from Pathankot, we have here to give up the tradition that the Mandi-Suket Rājas with names ending in Sena came from Lakhnauti in Bengal after the fall of Lakshmaṇasena in 1198 A. D.
v3.c35.s19.3
We have, however, to accept Vamśāvalis as some evidence, though not as reliable as inscriptions, and some history may be deduced out of Mandi Vamśāvalis. As already stated in Volume I p. 380, according to Cunningham, the founder of the Suket-Mandi family, Virasena, founded the state about 765 A. D. Cunningham calculated this date from the fact that from Virasena to Śāhusena and Bāhusena under whom the state divided into two, Suket and Mandi, there were 10 generations and upto Samudrasena who recorded the Nirmand inscription there were 6 more. From Samudrasena to Ajbarsena whose date is fixed from a copperplate inscription dated for the first time in Vikrama era viz. St. 1584 or A. D. 1527, there were 11 more kings. Thus there were 27 generations from Virasena to Ajbarsena of 1527 A. D. and taking 30 years for each generation we get for Virasena 1527-810=717 A. D. and for Bāhusena who founded the Mandi state 1017 or 987. "Roughly speaking we may take Bāhusena founding Mandi about 1000 A. D. and Samudrasena recording inscription at Nirmand about 1150 A. D." Hutchinson and Vogel think that even if we take 25 years' average we shall have to take into consideration that some names might have dropped out of the Vamśāvalis and hence we may accept the date assigned by Cunningham as fairly correct, especially as it tallies with the legend current in Chambā that the pregnant queen of a king of Chambā had taken refuge with a king in Suket and her son Moshanāśva was set up in Chambā by this king. If we take 25 years average, we get for Virasena (1527-675) 852, for Bāhusena (852 plus 250) 1102 and for Samudrasena (1102 plus 150) 1252 A. D. In any case, Suket may be taken as founded not later than 800 A. D. and Mandi than 1100 A. D. Dr. Fleet does not believe that the Nirmand inscription of Samudrasena is dated in St. 1227 or 1170 A. D. as Cunningham thought. The date given in that inscription is only 6 which may belong to the Śāstra era and on palæographic grounds the inscription cannot be later than the 7th century, A. D. This difficulty, however, need not disturb the dates above given for the founding of Mandi and Suket, as Samudrasena of the Nirmand inscription can be treated as a king different from the Samudrasena of the Vamśāvalis which really appears to be the case from the difference of the names of his immediate ancestors given in the inscription and in the Vamśāvalis.
v3.c35.s19.4
If we take the date of the founding of Mandi as 1000 A. D. or even 1100 A. D. it is possible to explain that the kingdom was founded by Sena Rajputs during invasions of Mahomedans into the Panjab under Mahmud or later. The story that it was founded by Bāhusena, brother of Śāhusena with whom he disagreed is of the usual fashion wherein two brothers having names sounding like each other found two kingdoms and may be disbelieved. Suket is, however, an older kingdom and was founded about 800 A. D. (It is a strange revelation that while Kangra Katoch Rajputs marry with the Suket family they do not marry with the Mandi family though of the same clan, as the Maharaāja of Guler informed us).
v3.c35.s19.5
We are not concerned with the history of Mandi or of Suket later than 1200 A. D. It seems that this family of Rajput hill princes remained undisturbed by Mahomedan invasions for a long time. They appear to have been independent of Kashmir also during this and the preceding sub-periods (800 to 1200).