The Parihars had twelve subdivisions, of which the chief were the Indha and Sindhal: a few of both are still to be found about the banks of the Luni.[[93]]
Chāwara or Chaura.
The capital of the Chawaras was the insular Deobandar, on the coast of Saurashtra, and the celebrated temple of Somnath, with many others on this coast, dedicated to Balnath, or the sun, is attributed to this tribe of the Sauras,[[95]] or [102] worshippers of the sun; most probably the generic name of the tribe as well as of the peninsula.[[96]]
By a natural catastrophe, or as the Hindu superstitious chroniclers will have it, as a punishment for the piracies of the prince of Deo, the element whose privilege he abused rose and overwhelmed his capital. As all this coast is very low, such an occurrence is not improbable; though the abandonment of Deo might have been compelled by the irruptions of the Arabians, who at this period carried on a trade with these parts, and the plunder of some of their vessels may have brought this punishment on the Chawaras. That it was owing to some such political catastrophe, we have additional grounds for belief from the annals of Mewar, which state that its princes inducted the Chawaras into the seats of the power they abandoned on the continent and peninsula of Saurashtra.
At all events, the prince of Deo laid the foundation of Anhilwara Patan in S. 802 (A.D. 746), which henceforth became the capital city of this portion of India, in lieu of Valabhipura, which gave the title of Balakaraes to its princes, the Balhara of the earlier Arabian travellers, and following them, the geographers of Europe.[[97]]
Vana Raja (or, in the dialects, Banraj) was this founder, and his dynasty ruled for one hundred and eighty-four years, when, as related in the sketch of the Solanki tribe, Bhojraj, the seventh from the founder, was deposed by his nephew.[[98]] It was during this dynasty that the Arabian travellers[[99]] visited this court, of which they have left but a confused picture. We are not, however, altogether in darkness regarding the Chawara race, as in the Khuman Raesa, one of the chronicles of Mewar, mention is made of the auxiliaries under a leader named Chatansi, in the defence of Chitor against the first attack on record of the Muhammadans.
When Mahmud of Ghazni invaded Saurashtra and captured its capital, Anhilwara, he deposed its prince, and placed upon the throne, according to Ferishta, a prince of the former dynasty, renowned for his ancient line and purity of blood, and who is styled Dabichalima; a name which has puzzled all European commentators. Now the Dabhi was a celebrated tribe, said by some to be a branch of the [103] Chawara, and this therefore may be a compound of Dabhi Chawara, or the Chaurasima, by some called a branch of the ancient Yadus.[[100]]
This ancient connexion between the Suryavansi chiefs and the Chawaras, or Sauras, of Saurashtra, is still maintained after a lapse of more than one thousand years; for although an alliance with the Rana’s family is deemed the highest honour that a Hindu prince can obtain, as being the first in rank in Rajasthan, yet is the humble Chawara sought out, even at the foot of fortune’s ladder, whence to carry on the blood of Rama. The present heir-apparent of a line of ‘one hundred kings,’ the prince Jawān Singh [1828-38], is the offspring of a Chawara mother, the daughter of a petty chieftain of Gujarat.
It were vain to give any account of the present state of the families bearing this name. They must depend upon the fame of past days; to this we leave them.