CHAPTER 3
Having thus epitomized the Bhatti annals, from the expulsion of the tribe from the Panjab, and the establishment of Tanot in the Indian desert, in A.D. 731, to the foundation of the existing capital, Jaisalmer, in A.D. 1156, we shall continue the sketch to the present day, nearly in the language of the chronicle, adding explanatory notes as we proceed.
Retrospect of Bhatti History.
Jaisal, the founder of Jaisalmer, survived the change of capital only twelve years. His elder son, Kailan, having given displeasure to the Pahu minister, was expelled, and his younger brother placed upon the gaddi.
Rāwal Sālivāhan I.
Embassy from Badarināth.
Proposals of marriage came from Mansi Deora of Sirohi.[[5]] The Rawal left Jaisalmer [247] to the care of his eldest son Bijal. Soon after his departure, the foster-brother (Dhabhai) of the young prince propagated the report of the Rawal’s death in an encounter with a tiger, and prompted Bijal to assume the dignity. Salbahan, on his return, finding his seat usurped, and having in vain expostulated with his traitorous son, proceeded to Khadal, of which Derawar is the capital, where he was slain, with three hundred of his followers, in repelling an irruption of the Balochs. Bijal did not long enjoy the dignity; having in a fit of passion struck the Dhabhai, the blow was returned, upon which, stung with shame and resentment, he stabbed himself with his dagger.
Rāwal Kailan, c. A.D. 1200-19.
Khizr Khan Baloch, with five thousand men, at this time again crossed the Mihran (Indus), and invaded the land of Khadal, which was the second irruption since he slew Salbahan. Kailan marched against him at the head of seven thousand Rajputs, and, after a severe engagement, slew the Baloch leader and fifteen hundred of his men. Kailan ruled nineteen years.
Rāwal Chāchakdeo I., c. A.D. 1219-41.
The Rathors, recently established in the land of Kher, had become troublesome [248] neighbours; Chachak obtained the aid of the Sodha troops to chastise them, and he proceeded to Jasal and Bhalotra, where they were established; but Chhadu and his son Thida averted his wrath by giving him a daughter to wife.[[7]]
Rawal Chachak ruled thirty-two years. He had only one son, Tej Rao, who died at the age of forty-two, from the smallpox, leaving two sons, Jethsi and Karan. To the youngest the Rawal was much attached; and having convened the chiefs around his death-bed, he entreated they would accede to his last wish, that his youngest grandson might be his successor.
Rāwal Karan Singh I., A.D. 1241-71.
Rāwal Lākhansen, A.D. 1271-75.
Rāwal Pūnpāl, A.D. 1275-76.
Rāwal Jeth Singh I., A.D. 1276-94.
Alāu-d-din attacks Jaisalmer.
During this lengthened siege, Ratansi had formed a friendship with the Nawab Mahbub Khan, and they had daily friendly meetings under a khejra[[14]] tree, between the advanced posts, each attended by a few followers. They played at chess together, and interchanged expressions of mutual esteem. But when duty called them to oppose each other in arms, the whole world was enamoured with their heroic courtesy. Jethsi had ruled eighteen years when he died.
Rāwal Mūlrāj III., A.D. 1294-95.
The Sati: Johar.
Ratansi had two sons, named Gharsi and Kanar, the eldest only twelve years of age. He wished to save them from the impending havoc, and applied to his courteous foeman. The Muslim chief swore he would protect them, and sent two confidential servants to receive the trust; to whom, bidding them a last farewell, their father consigned them. When they reached the royal camp they were kindly welcomed by the Nawab, who, putting his hand upon their heads, soothed them, and appointed two Brahmans to guard, feed, and instruct them.
On the morrow, the army of the Sultan advanced to the assault. The gates were thrown wide, and the fight began. Ratan was lost in the sea of battle; but one hundred and twenty Amirs fell before his sword ere he lay in the field. Mulraj plied his lance on the bodies of the barbarians: the field swam in blood. The unclean spirits were gorged with slaughter; but at length the Jadon chief fell, with seven hundred of the choice of his kin. With his death the battle closed; the victors ascended the castle, and Mahbub Khan caused the bodies of the brothers to be carried from the field and burned. The sakha took place in S. 1351, or A.D. 1295. Deoraj, who commanded the force in the field, was carried off by a fever. The royal garrison kept possession of the castle during two years, and at length blocked up the gateways, and dismantled and abandoned the place, which remained long deserted, for the Bhattis had neither means to repair the kunguras (battlements) nor men to defend them [253].
[1]. [Manu, Laws, x. 44, which does not name the Khasas.] There is a race in the desert, now Muhammadan, and called Khosas. Elphinstone mentions the Khasa-Khel. Kashgar is ‘the region of the Khasas,’ the Casia Regia of Ptolemy [?]. [The Khosas are a Muhammadan tribe, driven from Sind in A.D. 1786, who lived beside the Rann of Cutch, and levied blackmail on their neighbours. They are believed to be a branch of the Rind, and it is improbable that they can be connected with the Khasas of Manu (Laws, x. 22).]
[2]. We can scarcely refuse our assent to the belief that the Kathi or Katti tribe, here mentioned, is the remnant of the nation which so manfully opposed Alexander. It was then located about Multan, at this period occupied by the Langahas. The colony attacked by the Bhatti was near the Aravalli, in all probability a predatory band from the region they peopled and gave their name to, Kathiawar, in the Surashtra peninsula. [The Kāthis were probably a nomadic Central Asian tribe, driven down the valley of the Indus by the tide of early Muhammadan invasions. Their appearance in Jaisalmer at the end of the twelfth century A.D. probably marks a stage in their southerly progress. Thence they seem to have moved into Mālwa, thence to Cutch, and finally to Kāthiāwār (BG, ix. Part i. 252 ff., viii. 128).]
[3]. Mr. Elphinstone enumerates the Jadon as a subdivision of the Yusufzais, one of the great Afghan tribes, who were originally located about Kabul and Ghazni. I could not resist surmising the probability of the term Jadon, applied to a subdivision of the Afghan race, originating from the Hindu-Scythic Jadon, or Yadu; whence the boasted descent of the Afghans from Saul, king of the Jews (Yahudis). The customs of the Afghans would support this hypothesis: “The Afghans (says the Emperor Babur, p. 159), when reduced to extremities in war, come into the presence of their enemy with grass between their teeth, being as much as to say, ‘I am your ox.’” This custom is entirely Rajput, and ever recurring in inscriptions recording victories. They have their bards or poets in like manner, of whom Mr. Elphinstone gives an interesting account. In features, also, they resemble the Northern Rajputs, who have generally aquiline noses, or, as Mr. Elphinstone expresses it in the account of his journey through the desert, “Jewish features”; though this might tempt one to adopt the converse of my deduction, and say that these Yadus of Gajni were, with the Afghans, also of Yahudi origin: from the lost tribes of Israel. [The Jadūn, as Rose writes their name, are not Yūsufzais, but live S. of them, and have no connexion with the Rājput Jādons (Glossary, ii. 272 f., iii. 254).]
[4]. See Mr. Elphinstone’s map for the position of the Jadon branch of the Yusufzais at the foot of the Siwalik hills.
[5]. [“If this is correct, the date of the foundation of Jaisalmer must be wrong, for Mān Singh’s father is known to have been alive in 1249. Moreover the Deora sept did not exist, as it took the name from Mān Singh’s son Deoraj” (Erskine iii. A. 11).]
[6]. In this single passage we have revealed the tribe (got), race (kula), capital, and proper name of the prince of Dhat. The Sodha tribe, as before stated, is an important branch of the Pramara (Puar) race, and with the Umras and Sumras gave dynasties to the valley of Sind from the most remote period. The Sodhas, I have already observed, were probably the Sogdoi of Alexander, occupying Upper Sind when the Macedonian descended that stream. The Sumra dynasty is mentioned by Ferishta from ancient authorities, but the Muhammadan historians knew nothing, and cared nothing, about Rajput tribes. It is from such documents as these, scattered throughout the annals of these principalities, and from the ancient Hindu epic poems, that I have concentrated the “Sketches of the Rajput Tribes,” introductory to the first volume, which, however slight they appear, cost more research than the rest of the book. I write this note chiefly for the information of the patriarch of oriental lore on the Continent, the learned and ingenious De Sacy. If this mentor ask, “Where are now the Sodhas?” I reply, the ex-prince of Umarkot, with whose ancestors Humayun took refuge—in whose capital in the desert the great Akbar was born—and who could on the spur of the moment oppose four thousand horse to invasion, has only one single town, that of Chor, left to him. The Rathors, who, in the time of Armsi Rana and Rawal Chachak, were hardly known in Marudes, have their flag waving on the battlements of the ‘immortal castle’ (Amarkuta), and the Amirs of Sind have incorporated the greater part of Dhat with their State of Haidarabad. [Umarkot is not the ‘immortal castle,’ but the fort of Umar, chief of the Sūmra tribe (IGI, xxiv. 118).]
[7]. To those interested in the migration of these tribes, it must be gratifying to see these annals thus synchronically corroborating each other. About two centuries before this, in the reign of Dusaj, when the Bhatti capital was at Lodorva, an attack was made on the land of Kher, then occupied by the Guhilots, who were, as related in the Annals of Marwar, dispossessed by the Rathors. None but an inquirer into these annals of the desert tribes can conceive the satisfaction arising from such confirmation.
[8]. This tribe is unknown to Central India. [They are a branch of the Parihārs.]
[9]. [Alāu-d-dīn.]
[10]. The title, tribe, and capital of this race show that the Bhattis were intimately connected with the neighbouring States.
[11]. [About 100 miles N.N.E. of Jodhpur city.]
[12]. [In Mallāni, the ‘cradle of the Rāthors.’]
[13]. This can mean nothing more than that desultory attacks were carried on against the Bhatti capital. It is certain that Ala never carried his arms in person against Jaisalmer. [It is impossible to reconcile the dates, and this siege is not mentioned by Muhammadan historians. It is said to have lasted from A.D. 1286 to 1295. Balban reigned 1266-1286-7, and Alāu-d-dīn did not ascend the throne till 1296. Much of the narrative is a fiction of the Bhatti bards.]
[14]. [Prosopis spicigera.]
[15]. Sohagan, one who becomes Sati previous to her lord’s death; Duhagan, who follows him after death.
[16]. Literally, ‘the royal gate’; an allusion to the female apartments, or Rajloka.
[17]. Bala, is under sixteen; praurha, middle-aged; briddhu, when forty.
[18]. The funereal qualities of the tulsi plant, and the emblematic Salagram, or stone found in the Gandak River, have been often described.
[19]. On two occasions the Rajput chieftain wears the mor [maur], or ‘coronet’: on his marriage, and when going to die in battle; symbolic of his nuptials with the Apsaras, or ‘fair of heaven.’