Rājpūt, Sūrajvansi
Rājpūt, Sūrajvansi.—The Sūrajvansi (Descendants of the Sun) is recorded as the first of the thirty-six royal clans, but Colonel Tod gives no account of it, and it does not seem to be known to history as a separate clan. Mr. Crooke mentions an early tradition that the Sūrajvansis migrated from Ajodhia to Gujarāt in A.D. 224, but this is scarcely likely to be authentic in view, of the late dates now assigned for the origin of the important Rājpūt clans. Sūrajvansi should properly be a generic term denoting any Rājpūt belonging to a clan of the solar race, and it seems likely that it may at different times have been adopted by Rājpūts who were no longer recognised in their own clan, or by families of the cultivating castes or indigenous tribes who aspired to become Rājpūts. Thus Mr. Crooke notes that a large section of the Soiris (Savaras or Saonrs) have entirely abandoned their own tribal name and call themselves Sūrajvansi Rājpūts;[1] and the same thing has probably happened in other cases. In the Central Provinces the Sūrajvansis belong mainly to Hoshangābād, and here they form a separate caste, marrying among themselves and not with other Rājpūt clans. Hence they would not be recognised as proper Rājpūts, and are probably a promoted group of some cultivating caste.
[1] Ibidem, art. Soiri.
Rājpūt, Tomara
Rājpūt, Tomara, Tuar, Turtwar.—This clan is an ancient one, supposed by Colonel Tod to be derived from the Yādavas or lunar race. The name is said to come from tomar a club.[1] The Tomara clan was considered to be a very ancient one, and the great king Vikramāditya, whose reign was the Hindu Golden Age, was held to have been sprung from it. These traditions are, however, now discredited, as well as that of Delhi having been built by a Tomara king, Anang Pāl I., in A.D. 733. Mr. V.A. Smith states that Delhi was founded in 993–994, and Anangapāla, a Tomara king, built the Red Fort about 1050. In 1052 he removed the celebrated iron pillar, on which the eulogy of Chandragupta Vikramāditya is incised, from its original position, probably at Mathura, and set it up in Delhi as an adjunct to a group of temples from which the Muhammadans afterwards constructed the great mosque.[2] This act apparently led to the tradition that Vikramāditya had been a Tomara, and also to a much longer historical antiquity being ascribed to the clan than it really possessed. The Tomara rule at Delhi only lasted about 150 years, and in the middle of the twelfth century the town was taken by Bisāl Deo, the Chauhān chieftain of Ajmer, whose successor, Prithwi Rāj, reigned at Delhi, but was defeated and killed by the Muhammadans in A.D. 1192. Subsequently, perhaps in the reign of Ala-ud-Dīn Khilji, a Tomara dynasty established itself at Gwalior, and one of their kings, Dungara Singh (1425–1454), had executed the celebrated rock-sculptures of Gwalior.[3] In 1518 Gwalior was taken by the Muhammadans, and the last Tomara king reduced to the status of an ordinary jāgīrdār. The Tomara clan is numerous in the Punjab country near Delhi, where it still possesses high rank, but in the United Provinces it is not so much esteemed.[4] No ruling chief now belongs to this clan. In the Central Provinces the Tomaras or Tunwars belong principally to the Hoshangābād District The zamīndārs of Bilāspur, who were originally of the Tawar subcaste of the Kawar tribe, now also claim to be Tomara Rājpūts on the strength of the similarity of the name.
[1] Mr Crooke’s Tribes and Castes, art. Tomara.
[2] Early History of India, 3rd edition, p. 386.