[10] Elliot and Dowson, I. 114 and 519–531. It is noted in the text that to the Arab invaders of the eighth and ninth centuries the Medhs of Hind were the chief people of Káthiáváḍa both in Soráth in the south and in Mália in the north. They were as famous by sea as by land. According to Beláduri (a.d. 950) (Reinaud’s Mémoire Sur l’Inde, 234–235) the Meyds of Sauráshṭra and Kacch were sailors who lived on the sea and sent fleets to a distance. Ibn Khurdádba (a.d. 912) and Idrísi (a.d. 1130), probably from the excellent Aljauhari (Reinaud’s Abulfeda, lxiii. and Elliot, I. 79), have the form Mand. Elliot, I. 14. The form Mand survives in a musical mode popular in Rájputána, which is also called Rajewári. The Mand is like the Central Asian Mus-ta-zad (K. S. Fazullah Lutfallah.) [↑]
[11] Indian Antiquary, VI. 191. [↑]
[12] Rájputána Gazetteer, I. 11. [↑]
[13] Rájputána Gazetteer, I. 66; North-West Province Gazetteer, III. 265; Ibbetson’s Panjáb Census page 261. Some of these identifications are doubtful. Dr. Bhagvánlál in the text (21 Note 6 and 33) distinguishes between the Mevas or Medas whom he identifies as northern immigrants of about the first century b.c. and the Mers. This view is in agreement with the remark in the Rájputána Gazetteer, I. 66, that the Mers have been suspected to be a relic of the Indo-Skythian Meds. Again Tod (Annals of Rajasthán, I. 9) derives Meváḍa from madhya (Sk.) middle, and the Mer of Merwáḍa from meru a hill. In support of Tod’s view it is to be noted that the forts Balmer Jesalmer Komalmer and Ajmer, which Pandit Bhagvánlál would derive from the personal names of Mer leaders, are all either hill forts or rocks (Annals, I. 11, and Note †). It is, on the other hand, to be noted that no hill forts out of this particular tract of country are called Mers, and that the similar names Koli and Malava, which with equal probability as Medh might be derived from Koh and Mala hill, seem to be tribal not geographical names. [↑]
[14] The tales cited in the Rás Málá (I. 103) prove that most of the Kolis between Gujarát and Káthiáváḍa are Mairs. That till the middle of the tenth century the south-east of Káthiáváḍa was held by Medhs (Káth. Gazetteer, 672) supports the view that the Kolis, whom about a.d. 1190 (Tod’s Western India, I. 265) the Gohils drove out of the island of Piram, were Medhs, and this is in agreement with Idrísi (a.d. 1130 Elliot, I. 83) who calls both Piram and the Medhs by the name Mand. Similarly some of the Koli clans of Kacch (Gazetteer, 70) seem to be descended from the Medhs. And according to Mr. Dalpatram Khakkar three subdivisions of Brahmo-Kshatris, of which the best known are the Mansura Mers and the Pipalia Mers, maintain the surname Mair or Mer. (Cutch Gazetteer, 52 note 2.) Mera or Mehra is a common surname among Sindhi Baluchis. Many of the best Musalmán captains and pilots from Káthiáváḍa, Kacch, and the Makrán coast still have Mer as a surname. Mehr is also a favourite name among both Khojáhs and Memans, the two special classes of Káthiáváḍa converts to Islám. The Khojáhs explain the name as meaning Meher Ali the friend of Ali; the Memans also explain Mer as Meher or friend. But as among Memans Mer is a common name for women as well as for men the word can hardly mean friend. The phrase Merbaí or Lady Mer applied to Meman mothers seems to have its origin in the Rájput practice of calling the wife by the name of her caste or tribe as Káthiáníbaí, Meraníbaí. In the case both of the Khojáhs and the Memans the name Mer seems to be the old tribal name continued because it yielded itself to the uses of Islám. Mehr, Mihr, and Mahar are also used as titles of respect. The Khánt Kolis of Girnár, apparently a mixture of the Maitrakas of the text and of a local hill tribe, still (Káthiáwár Gazetteer, 142) honour their leaders with the name Mer explaining the title by the Gujaráti mer the main bead in a rosary. Similarly in Málwa a Gurjjara title is Mihr (Rájputána Gazetteer, I. 80) and in the Panjáb Máhar (Gazetteer of Panjáb, Gujrát, 50–51). And in Kacch the headman among the Bharwáds, who according to some accounts are Gurjjarás, is called Mir (Cutch Gazetteer, 81). Similarly among the Rabáris of Kacch the name of the holy she-camel is Máta Meri. (Ditto, 80.) All these terms of respect are probably connected with Mihira, Sun. [↑]
[15] Compare Tod (Western India, 420): Though enrolled among the thirty-six royal races we may assert the Jethvás have become Hindus only from locality and circumstance. Of the Jhálás Tod says (Rajasthán, I. 113): As the Jhálás are neither Solar Lunar nor Agnikula they must be strangers. Again (Western India, 414): The Jhálá Makvánás are a branch of Húṇas. Of the name Makvána (Káthiáwár Gazetteer, 111; Rás Málá, I. 297) two explanations may be offered, either that the word comes from Mák the dewy tracts in Central Kacch (Cutch Gazetteer, 75 note 2) where (Káthiáwár Gazetteer, 420) the Jhálás stopped when the Mers and Jethvás passed south, or that Makvána represents Mauna a Puráṇic name for the Húṇas (Wilson’s Works, IV. 207). Tod’s and Wilford’s (Asiatic Researches, IX. 287) suggestion that Makvána is Maháhuna is perhaps not phonetically possible. At the same time that the Makvánás are a comparatively recent tribe of northerners is supported by the ascendancy in the fourteenth century in the Himálayas of Makvánis (Hodgson’s Essays, I. 397; Government of India Selections XLVII. 54 and 119) who used the Indo-Skythian title Sáh (Ditto). With the Nepal Makvánis may be compared the Makpons or army-men the caste of the chief of Baltistán or Little Tibet. Vigne’s Kashmir, II. 258, 439. [↑]
[16] The evidence in support of the statement that the Maitrakas and Húṇas fought at the same time against the same Hindu rulers is given in the text. One of the most important passages is in the grant of Dhruvasena III. (Epig. Ind. I. 89 [a.d. 653–4]) the reference to Bhaṭárka the founder of Valabhi (a.d. 509–520) meeting in battle the matchless armies of the Maitrakas. [↑]
[17] Mr. Fleet (Epigraphia Indica, III. 327 and note 12) would identify Mihirakula’s tribe with the Maitrakas. More recent evidence shows that his and his father Toramáṇa’s tribe was the Jáuvlas. That the White Húṇas or other associated tribes were sun-worshippers appears from a reference in one of Mihirakula’s inscriptions (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, III. 161) to the building of a specially fine temple of the sun; and from the fact that in Kashmír Mihirakula founded a city Mihirapura and a temple to Mihireshwar. (Darmsteter in Journal Asiatique, X. 70: Fleet in Indian Antiquary, XV. 242–252.) Mihirakula’s (a.d. 508–530) sun-worship may have been the continuance of the Kushán (a.d. 50–150) worship of Mithro or Helios (Wilson’s Ariana Antiqua, 357). At the same time the fact that Mihirakula uses the more modern form Mihir makes it probable (Compare Rawlinson’s Seventh Monarchy, 284) that Mihirakula’s sun-worship was more directly the result of the spread of sun-worship in Central Asia under the fiercely propagandist Sassanians Varahan V. or Behram Gor (a.d. 420–440), and his successors Izdigerd II. (a.d. 440–457), and Perozes (a.d. 457–483). The extent to which Zoroastrian influence pervaded the White Húṇas is shown by the Persian name not only of Mihirakula but of Kushnawaz (a.d. 470–490) the great emperor of the White Húṇas the overthrower of Perozes. That this Indian sun-worship, which, at latest, from the seventh to the tenth century made Multán so famous was not of local origin is shown by the absence of reference to sun-worship in Multán in the accounts of Alexander the Great. Its foreign origin is further shown by the fact that in the time of Beruni (a.d. 1020 Sachau’s Edition, I. 119) the priests were called Maghas and the image of the sun was clad in a northern dress falling to the ankles. It is remarkable as illustrating the Hindu readiness to adopt priests of conquering tribes into the ranks of Bráhmans that the surname Magha survives (Cutch Gazetteer, 52 note 2) among Shrimáli Bráhmans. These Maghas are said to have married Bhoja or Rájput girls and to have become the Bráhman Bhojaks of Dwárka. Even the Mands who had Śaka wives, whose descendants were named Mandagas, obtained a share in the temple ceremonies. Reinaud’s Mémoire Sur l’Inde, 393. [↑]
[18] Wilson’s Vishṇu Purána Preface XXXIX. in Reinaud’s Mémoire Sur l’Inde, 391. Details are given in Wilson’s Works, X. 381–385. [↑]
[19] Reinaud’s Mémoire Sur l’Inde, 393; Wilson’s Works, X. 382. [↑]