In the passage quoted from Chand, recording the princes who led their household troops under Bisaldeo, there are four names which establish synchronisms: one by which we arrive directly at the date, and three indirectly. The first is Udayaditya Pramar, king of Dhar (son of Raja Bhoj), whose period I established from numerous inscriptions,[[60]] as between S. 1100 and S. 1150; so that the date of his joining the expedition would be about the middle of his reign. The indirect but equally strong testimony consists of,
First, The mention of “the Bhumia Bhatti from Derawar”;[[61]] for had there been anything apocryphal in Chand, Jaisalmer, the present capital, would have been given as the Bhatti abode.[[62]]
Second, The Kachhwahas, who are also described as coming from Antarved (the region between the Jumna and Ganges); for the infant colony transmitted from Narwar to Amber was yet undistinguished.
The third proof is in the Mewar inscription, when Tejsi, the grandfather of Samarsi, is described as in alliance with Bisaldeo. Bisaldeo is said to have lived sixty-four years. Supposing this date, S. 1120, to be the medium point of his existence, this would make his date S. 1088 to S. 1152, or A.D. 1032 to A.D. 1096; but as his father, Dharmagaj, ‘the elephant in faith,’ or Bir Bilandeo (called Malandeo, in the Hamir Raesa), was killed defending Ajmer on the last invasion of Mahmud, we must necessarily place Bisal’s birth (supposing him an infant on that event), ten years earlier, or A.D. 1022 (S. 1078), to A.D. 1086 (S. 1142), comprehending the date on the pillar of Delhi, and by computation all the periods mentioned in the catalogue. We may therefore safely adopt the date of the Raesa, namely S. 1066 to S. 1130.
Bisaldeo was, therefore, contemporary with Jaipal, the Tuar king of Delhi; with [454] Durlabha and Bhima of Gujarat; with Bhoj and Udayaditya of Dhar; with Padamsi and Tejsi of Mewar; and the confederacy which he headed must have been that against the Islamite king Maudud, the fourth from Mahmud of Ghazni, whose expulsion from the northern parts of Rajputana (as recorded on the pillar of Delhi) caused Aryavarta again to become ‘the land of virtue.’ Mahmud’s final retreat from India by Sind, to avoid the armies collected “by Bairamdeo and the prince of Ajmer” to oppose him, was in A.H. 417, A.D. 1026, or S. 1082, nearly the same date as that assigned by Chand, S. 1086.[[63]]
We could dilate on the war which Bisaldeo waged against the prince of Gujarat, his victory, and the erection of Bisalnagar,[[64]] on the spot where victory perched upon his lance; but this we reserve for the introduction of the history of the illustrious Prithiraj. There is much fable mixed up with the history of Bisaldeo, apparently invented to hide a blot in the annals, warranting the inference that he became a convert, in all likelihood a compulsory one, to the doctrines of Islam. There is also the appearance of his subsequent expiation of this crime in the garb of a penitent; and the mound (dhundh), where he took up his abode, still exists, and is called after him, Bisal-ka-dhundh, at Kalakh Jobner.[[65]]
According to the Book of Kings of Govind Ram (the Hara bard), the Haras were descended from Anuraj, son of Bisaldeo; but Mogji, the Khichi bard,[[66]] makes Anuraj progenitor of the Khichis, and son of Manika Rae. We follow the Hara bard.
Anuraj had assigned to him in appanage the important frontier fortress of Asi (vulg. Hansi). His son Ishtpal, together with Aganraj, son of Ajairao, the founder of Khichpur Patan in Sind-Sagar, was preparing to seek his fortunes with Randhir Chauhan, prince of Gualkund: but both Asi and Golkonda were almost simultaneously assailed by an army “from the wilds of Kujliban.” Randhir performed the sakha; and only a single female, his daughter, named Surabhi, survived, and she fled for protection towards Asi, then attacked by the same furious invader. Anuraj prepared to fly; but his son, Ishtpal, determined not to wait the attack, but seek the foe. A battle ensued, when the invader was slain, and Ishtpal, grievously wounded, pursued him till he fell, near the spot where Surabhi was awaiting death under the shade of a pipal: for “hopes of life were extinct, and fear and hunger had [455] reduced her to a skeleton.” In the moment of despair, however, the asvattha (pipal) tree under which she took shelter was severed, and Asapurna, the guardian goddess of her race, appeared before her. To her, Surabhi related how her father and twelve brothers had fallen in defending Golkonda against ‘the demon of Kujliban.’ The goddess told her to be of good cheer, for that a Chauhan of her own race had slain him, and was then at hand; and led her to where Ishtpal lay senseless from his wounds. By her aid he recovered,[[67]] and possessed himself of that ancient heirloom of the Chauhans, the famed fortress of Asir.
Ishtpal, the founder of the Haras, obtained Asir in S. 1081[[68]] (or A.D. 1025); and as Mahmud’s last destructive visit to India, by Multan through the desert to Ajmer, was in A.H. 714, or A.D. 1022, we have every right to conclude that his father Anuraj lost his life and Asi to the king of Ghazni; at the same time that Ajmer was sacked, and the country laid waste by this conqueror, whom the Hindu bard might well style “the demon from Kujliban.”[[69]] The Muhammadan historians give us no hint even of any portion of Mahmud’s army penetrating into the peninsula, though that grasping ambition, which considered the shores of Saurashtra but an intermediate step from Ghazni to the conquest of Ceylon and Pegu, may have pushed an army during his long halt at Anhilwara, and have driven Randhir from Golkonda.[[70]] But it is idle to speculate upon such slender materials; let them suffice to illustrate one new fact, namely, that these kingdoms of the south as well as the north were held by Rajput sovereigns, whose offspring, blending with the original population, produced that mixed race of Mahrattas, inheriting with the names the warlike propensities of their ancestors, but who assume the name of their abodes as titles, as the Nimbalkars, the Phalkias, the Patankars, instead of their tribes of Jadon, Tuar, Puar, etc. etc.
Ishtpal had a son called Chandkaran; his son, Lokpal, had Hamir and Gambhir, names well known in the wars of Prithiraj. The brothers were enrolled amongst his [456] one hundred and eight great vassals, from which we may infer that, though Asir was not considered absolutely as a fief, its chief paid homage to Ajmer, as the principal seat of the Chauhans.