History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c38.s6: 6 Bhelsa and Ujjain.
History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c38.s6
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6 Bhelsa and Ujjain.
v3.c38.s6.1
"In 632 H (1234 A. D.) Altamash sent an army against Malwa and took the city and fort of Bhelsa. There was a temple there which was three hundred years in building. It was 105 gaj high. It was demolished" (E. II p. 328). This was probably the famous Bhaillaswāmin (sun) temple mentioned by Al-Beruni. The Garudastambha inscription of the 1st century B. C. belonged probably to a Vishnu temple on the other side of the river Betwa which probably had already fallen.
v3.c38.s6.2
Whatever this may be, the Udepur temple of Śiva some miles distant from Bhelsa is not the one referred to here. For this temple built by Udayāditya Paramāra which has also a very high pinnacle still survives to attest the glory of the Paramāra rule. This event happened during the reign of the last Paramāra king Devapāla who, as stated in the chapter on the later Paramāras, ruled from 1216 to 1240 A. D.
v3.c38.s6.3
"From Bhelsa he (Altamash) proceeded to Ujjain where there was the temple of Mahākāla which he destroyed as well as an image of Vikramāditya who ruled Malwa 1346 years before this time. The Hindu era dates from his reign (as this figure leads to 1289 A. D. as the date of the capture of Ujjain which really is 1234 A. D. we may take 55 years as the length of Vikrama's rule). Some other images cast in copper were carried to Delhi with the stone image of Mahākāla" (E. II p. 328). There is no reason to doubt the truth of this concise unexaggerated statement, though we find no corroborating contemporaneous Hindu record. The temple of Mahākāla was then converted into a mosque which, history tells us, was again converted into a Hindu temple of Mahākāla in the days of Ranoji Scindia whose descendants still rule in Ujjain and worship Mahākāla. It may be mentioned that the present high-pinnacled temple of Mahākāla was built by the Shenvi Diwan of Ranoji Scindia, Ramachandra Bābā, who was childless and who, therefore, used most of his wealth in this great work (1745 A. D.). Probably the present temple stands in the very place where the old temple stood. It may also be noted that later on the Mahomedan rulers of Malwa allowed the Hindus to have a Mahākāla idol set up at a short distance from the original temple (destroyed and converted into a mosque ) and it is known now as the Vridhha or old Mahākāla.
v3.c38.s6.4
This expedition into Malwa was apparently for the sole purpose of destroying famous Hindu idols, a religious expedition in the manner of the Somnath expedition of Mahmud. There was no attempt at conquest of Malwa and its reduction into a Mahomedan province. Probably the territory was too distant and not contiguous like Gwalior. We have already stated that the Paramāra rule endured for about a century more just as Gujarat remained under Chālukyas for about the same time. Malwa was finally conquered by Allauddin Khilji.