[18]. The Pramars were formerly the most powerful potentates of Central India. Handmaids, and bedsteads of gold, were always a part of the daeja or dower of Hindu princesses.
[19]. Abulfazl [? Abulghazi] mentions Joga as prince of Gasmien and Kashmir, who was slain by Aghuz Khan, the Patriarch of the Tatar tribes.
[20]. In this early portion of the annals there is a singular mixture of historical facts, and it appears that the Yadu scribes confound their connexions with the Syrian and Bactrian Greeks, and with the first Muslim conquerors. Imperfect as is this notice of Subahu, his son Rajh, and grandson Gaj, who were thus assailed by Farid of Khorasan (Bactria), and his auxiliary, the king of Rum (Syria), we have a powerful allusion to Antiochus the Great, who, two hundred and four years before Christ, invaded Bactria and India. Amongst the few facts left of this expedition is his treaty with Sophagasenas, the Indian monarch, in which the Syrian king stipulated for a tribute in elephants. There are, even in this medley of incidents, grounds for imagining that Sophagasenas is the Yadu prince of Gajni. Whether, out of Subahu and Gaj, the Greeks manufactured their Sophagasenas, or whether prince Gaj could have been entitled Subhagsen, in compliment to his mother, Subhag-Sundari, of Malwa, must be left for the speculative to decide. It is not unlikely that the nature of the tribute, said to have been elephants, which the Indian agreed to furnish to the Greek prince, may have originated with the name of Gaj, which means ‘elephant.’ [Sophagasenas, mentioned by Polybius (xi. 34) was probably an Indian king, Subhāgasena, who ruled in the Kābul valley.]
There is at the same time much that refers to the early progress of Islam in these regions of Central Asia. Price, in his excellent history, extracting from the Khulasatu-l-Akhbar, says, “Hejauge was entrusted with the government of Khorasan, and Obaidoolah with Seistan, who had orders from Hejauge, his superior, to invade Caubul, whose prince was Reteil or Retpeil, whom the Author supposes either a Tatar or Hindoo prince. Artfully retiring, he drew the Mohamedan army into the defiles, and blocking up the rear, cut off their retreat, and Obaidoolah was compelled to purchase his liberation by the payment of seven hundred thousand dirhems.” [See Elliot-Dowson ii. 417; “Retpeil” is possibly Ratnapāla.]
This was the seventy-eighth year of the Hegira, or A.D. 697. Conjoined to what follows, it appears to have reference to Rajh, father of Gaj. Again,
“Obaidoolah and Abdoorehman invaded Seistan with forty thousand men. The prince of Caubul tried the same manœuvre, but was outwitted by the Mohamedan, who conquered a great part of Caubul and acquired great booty, with which he returned to Seistan, to the great displeasure of Hejauge; and Abdoorehman entered into a confederacy with Retpeil to attack Hejauge, and absolve Caubul from tribute. Moghairah was the successor of Abdoorehman in Khorasan, while his father, Mohilel, was employed beyond the Jehoon, but died at Meru of a burning diarrhoea, bequeathing his government to Yezzid.”
This account of Mughaira’s (the governor of Khorasan) death, while carrying on war against the Hindu “Retpeil” of Kabul, has much analogy to the sudden death of Mamrez, the foe of Rajh of Zabulistan. One thing is now proved, that princes of the Hindu faith ruled over all these regions in the first ages of Islamism, and made frequent attempts, for centuries after, to reconquer them. Of this fact, Babur gives us a most striking instance in his description of Gajni, or, as he writes, Ghazni. He says, “I have seen, in another history, that when the Rai of Hind besieged Subaktegin in Ghazni, Subaktegin ordered dead flesh and other impurities to be thrown into the fountain, when there instantly arose a tempest and hurricane, with rain and snow, and by this device he drove away the enemy.” Babur adds, “I made then inquiry in Ghazni for this well, but nobody could give me the slightest information regarding it” (p. 150). Doubtless, when Babur conquered India, and became better acquainted with the Hindu warriors, he would have got to the bottom of this anecdote, and have seen that the success of the ruse of Sabuktegin arose out of the religion of his foes, who could not use water thus contaminated by the flesh of the sacred kine. The celebrated Valabhi was reduced by the same stratagem.
[21]. Neither of these towns appears in any map. “There is a Koonj Reshak in Khorasan, and a Penjher in Balk.” Sir W. Ouseley’s Ebn Haukal, pp. 213-223.
[22]. “The king of Rum and the king of Khorasan, with horse (haya), elephants (gaya or gaj), caparisons (pākhar), and foot-soldiers (pāē or pāyik) [are at hand]. Beware, let it enter your mind, O Rāē, Lord of the Jadus!“
[23]. [A ghari = 24 minutes.]