Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, vol. 1 of 3, by James Tod

Agnikulas, Pramāra.

—1st Pramara. There are four races to whom the Hindu genealogists have given Agni, or the element of fire, as progenitor. The Agnikulas are therefore the sons of Vulcan, as the others are of Sol,^[38] Mercurius, and Terra [90].

The Agnikulas are the Pramara, the Parihara, the Chalukya or Solanki, and the Chauhan.^[39]

That these races, the sons of Agni, were but regenerated, and converted by the Brahmans to fight their battles, the clearest interpretations of their allegorical history will disclose; and, as the most ancient of their inscriptions are in the Pali character, discovered wherever the Buddhist religion prevailed, their being declared of the race of Tasta or Takshak,^[40] warrants our asserting the Agnikulas to be of this same race, which invaded India about two centuries before Christ. It was about this period that Parsvanatha the twenty-third Buddha,^[41] appeared in India; his symbol, the serpent. The legend of the snake (Takshak) escaping with the celebrated work Pingala, which was recovered by Garuda, the eagle of Krishna, is purely allegorical; and descriptive of the contentions between the followers of Parswanatha, figured under his emblem, the snake, and those of Krishna, depicted under his sign, the eagle.

The worshippers of Surya probably recovered their power on the exterminating civil wars of the Lunar races, but the creation of the Agnikulas is expressly stated to be for the preservation of the altars of Bal, or Iswara, against the Daityas, or Atheists.

The celebrated Abu, or Arbuda, the Olympus of Rajasthan, was the scene of contention between the ministers of Surya and these Titans, and their relation might, with the aid of imagination, be equally amusing with the Titanic war of the ancient poets of the west [91]. The Buddhists claim it for Adinath, their first Buddha; the Brahmans for Iswara, or, as the local divinity styled Achaleswara.^[42] The Agnikunda is still shown on the summit of Abu, where the four races were created by the Brahmans to fight the battles of Achaleswara and polytheism, against the monotheistic Buddhists, represented as the serpents or Takshaks. The probable period of this conversion has been hinted at; but of the dynasties issuing from the Agnikulas, many of the princes professed the Buddhist or Jain faith, to periods so late as the Muhammadan invasion.

The Pramara, though not, as his name implies, the ‘chief warrior,’ was the most potent of the Agnikulas. He sent forth thirty-five sakha, or branches, several of whom enjoyed extensive sovereignties. ‘The world is the Pramar’s,’ is an ancient saying, denoting their extensive sway; and the Naukot ^[43] Marusthali signified the nine divisions into which the country, from the Sutlej to the ocean, was partitioned amongst them.

Maheswar, Dhar, Mandu, Ujjain, Chandrabhaga, Chitor, Abu, Chandravati, Mhau Maidana, Parmavati, Umarkot, Bakhar, Lodorva, and Patan are the most conspicuous of the capitals they conquered or founded.

Though the Pramara family never equalled in wealth the famed Solanki princes of Anhilwara, or shone with such lustre as the Chauhan, it attained a wider range and an earlier consolidation of dominion than either, and far excelled in all, the Parihara, the last and least of the Agnikulas, which it long held tributary.

Maheswar, the ancient seat of the Haihaya kings, appears to have been the first seat of government of the Pramaras. They subsequently founded Dharanagar, and Mandu on the crest of the Vindhya hills; and to them is even attributed the city of Ujjain, the first meridian of the Hindus, and the seat of Vikrama.

There are numerous records of the family, fixing eras in their history of more modern times; and it is to be hoped that the interpretation of yet undeciphered inscriptions may carry us back beyond the seventh century.

The era ^[44] of Bhoj, the son of Munja, has been satisfactorily settled; and an [92] inscription ^[45] in the nail-headed character, carries it back a step further,^[46] and elicits an historical fact of infinite value, giving the date of the last prince of the Pramaras of Chitor, and the consequent accession of the Guhilots.

The Nerbudda was no limit to the power of the Pramaras.Pramaras. About the very period of the foregoing inscription, Ram Pramar held his court in Telingana, and is invested by the Chauhan Bard, Chand, with the dignity of paramount sovereign of India, and head of a splendid feudal ^[47] association, whose members became independent on his death. The Bard makes this a voluntary act of the Pramaras; but coupled with the Guhilots’ violent acquisition of Chitor, we may suppose the successor of Ram was unable to maintain such supremacy.

While Hindu literature survives the name of Bhoj Pramara and ‘the nine gems’ of his court cannot perish; though it is difficult to say which of the three ^[48] princes of this name is particularly alluded to, as they all appear to have been patrons of science.science.

Chandragupta, the supposed opponent of Alexander, was a Maurya, and in the sacred genealogies is declared of the race of Takshak. The ancient inscriptions of the Pramars, of which the Maurya is a principal branch, declare it of the race of Tasta and Takshak, as does that now given from the seat of their power, Chitor.^[49]

Salivahana, the conqueror of Vikramaditya, was a Takshak, and his era set aside that of the Tuar in the Deccan.

Not one remnant of independence exists to mark the greatness of the Pramaras: ruins are the sole records of their power. The prince of Dhat,^[50] in the Indian [93] desert, is the last phantom of royalty of the race; and the descendant of the prince who protected Humayun, when driven from the throne of Timur, in whose capital, Umarkot, the great Akbar was born, is at the foot of fortune’s ladder; his throne in the desert, the footstool of the Baloch, on whose bounty he is dependent for support.

Among the thirty-five sakha of the Pramaras the Vihal was eminent, the princes of which line appear to have been lords of Chandravati, at the foot of the Aravalli. The Rao of Bijolia, one of the sixteen superior nobles of the Rana’s court, is a Pramara of the ancient stock of Dhar, and perhaps its most respectable representative.

Mori [or Maurya].—Of which was Chandragupta, and the princes of Chitor prior to the Guhilot.

Umata.—The princes of Umatwara in Malwa, there established for twelve generations. Umatwara is the largest tract left to the Pramaras. Since the war in 1817, being under the British interference, they cannot be called independent.

Besides others unknown; as Chaonda, Khejar, Sagra, Barkota, Puni, Sampal, Bhiba, Kalpusar, Kalmoh, Kohila, Papa, Kahoria, Dhand, Deba, Barhar, Jipra, Posra, Dhunta, Rikamva, and Taika. Many of these are proselytes to Islamism, and several beyond the Indus [94].

Chahuman or Chauhan.

—On this race so much has been said elsewhere,^[52] that it would be superfluous to give more than a rapid sketch of them here.

This is the most valiant of the Agnikulas, and it may be asserted not of them only, but of the whole Rajput race. Actions may be recorded of the greater part of each of the Chhattis-kula, which would yield to none in the ample and varied pages of history; and though the ‘Talwar Rathoran’ would be ready to contest the point, impartial decision, with a knowledge of their respective merits, must assign to the Chauhan the van in the long career of arms.

Its branches (sakha) have maintained all the vigour of the original stem; and the Haras, the Khichis, the Deoras, the Sonigiras, and others of the twenty-four, have their names immortalised in the song of the bard.

The derivation of Chauhan is coeval with his fabulous birth: ‘the four-handed warrior’ (Chatur-bhuja Chatur-bahu Vira). All failed when sent against the demons, but the Chauhan, the last creation of the Brahmans to fight their battles against infidelity.

A short extract may be acceptable from the original respecting the birth of the Chauhan, to guard the rites of our Indian Jove on this Olympus, the sacred Abu: “the Guru of mountains, like Sumer or Kailas, which Achaleswara made his abode. Fast but one day on its summit, and your sins will be forgiven; reside there for a year, and you may become the preceptor of mankind.”

The Agnikunda Fire-pit.

—Notwithstanding the sanctity of Abu, and the little temptation to disturb the anchorites of Bal, “the Munis, who passed their time in devotion, whom desire never approached, who drew support from the cow, from roots, fruits, and flowers,” yet did the Daityas, envying their felicity, render the sacrifice impure, and stop in transit the share of the gods. “The Brahmans dug the pit for burnt-sacrifice to the south-west (nairrit); but the demons ^[53] raised storms which darkened the air and filled it with clouds of sand, showering ordure, blood, bones and flesh, with every impurity, on their rites. Their penance was of no avail.”

Again they kindled the sacred fire; and the priests, assembling round the Agnikunda,^[54] prayed for aid to Mahadeo [95]. "From the fire-fountain a figure issued forth, but he had not a warrior’s mien. The Brahmans placed him as guardian of the gate, and thence his name, Prithivi-dwara.^[55] A second issued forth, and being formed in the palm (challu) of the hand was named Chalukya. A third appeared and was named Pramara.^[56] He had the blessing of the Rishis, and with the others went against the demons, but they did not prevail. Again Vasishtha,^[57] seated on the lotus, prepared incantations; again he called the gods to aid: and, as he poured forth the libation, a figure arose, lofty in stature, of elevated front, hair like jet, eyes rolling, breast expanded, fierce, terrific, clad in armour, quiver filled, a bow in one hand and a brand in the other, quadriform (Chaturanga),^[58] whence his name, Chauhan.

“Vasishtha prayed that his hope ^[59] might be at length fulfilled, as the Chauhan was despatched against the demons. Sakti-devi ^[60] on her lion, armed with the trident, descended, and bestowed her blessing on the Chauhan, and as Asapurna, or Kalika, promised always to hear his prayer. He went against the demons; their leaders he slew. The rest fled, nor halted till they reached the depths of hell. Anhal slew the demons. The Brahmans were made happy; and of his race was Prithwiraja.”^[61]

The genealogical tree of the Chauhans exhibits thirty-nine princes, from Anhal, the first created Chauhan, to Prithwiraja, the last of the Hindu emperors of India.^[62] But whether the chain is entire we cannot say. The inference is decidedly against its being so; for this creation or regeneration is assigned to an age centuries anterior to Vikramaditya: and we may safely state these converts to be of the Takshak race, invaders of India at a very early period.

Ajaipal is a name celebrated in the Chauhan chronicles, as the founder of the fortress of Ajmer, one of the earliest establishments of Chauhan power.^[63]

Sambhar,^[64] on the banks of the extensive salt lake of the same name, was probably anterior to Ajmer, and yielded an epithet to the princes of this race, who [96] were styled Sambhari Rao. These continued to be the most important places of Chauhan power, until the translation of Prithwiraja to the imperial throne of Delhi threw a parting halo of splendour over the last of its independent kings. There were several princes whose actions emblazon the history of the Chauhans. Of these was Manika Rae, who first opposed the progress of the Muhammadan arms. Even the history of the conquerors records that the most obstinate opposition which the arms of Mahmud of Ghazni encountered was from the prince of Ajmer,^[65] who forced him to retreat, foiled and disgraced, from this celebrated stronghold, in his destructive route to Saurashtra.

The attack on Manika Rae appears to have been by Kasim, the general of Walid, on the close of the first century of the Hegira.^[66] The second attack was at the end of the fourth century. A third was during the reign of Bisaladeva, who headed a grand confederacy of the Rajput princes against the foes of their religion. The celebrated Udayaditya Pramar is enumerated amongst the chiefs acting in subserviency to the Chauhan prince on this occasion, and as his death has been fixed by unerring records in A.D. 1096, this combination must have been against the Islamite king Maudud, the fourth from Mahmud; and to this victory is the allusion in the inscription on the ancient pillar of Delhi.^[67] But these irruptions continued to the captivity and death of the last of the Chauhans, whose reign exhibits a splendid picture of feudal manners.

The Chauhans sent forth twenty-four branches, of whom the most celebrated are the existing families of Bundi and Kotah, in the division termed Haravati. They have well maintained the Chauhan reputation for valour. Six princely brothers shed their blood in one field, in the support of the aged Shah Jahan against his rebellious son Aurangzeb, and of the six but one survived his wounds.

The Khichis ^[68] of Gagraun and Raghugarh, the Deoras of Sirohi, the Sonigiras of Jalor, the Chauhans of Sui Bah and Sanchor, and the Pawechas of Pawagarh, have all immortalized themselves by the most heroic and devoted deeds. Most of these families yet exist, brave as in the days of Prithwiraja.

Many chiefs of the Chauhan race abandoned their faith to preserve their lands, the Kaimkhani,^[69] the Sarwanis, the Lowanis, the Kararwanis, and the Bedwanas [97], chiefly residing in Shaikhavati, are the most conspicuous. No less than twelve petty princes thus deserted their faith: which, however, is not contrary to the Rajput creed; for even Manu says, they may part with wife to preserve their land. Isaridas, nephew of Prithwiraja, was the first who set this example.

Twenty-four Sakha of the Chauhans.—Chauhan, Hara, Khichi, Sonigira, Deora, Pabia, Sanchora, Goelwal, Bhadauria, Nirwan, Malani, Purbia, Sura, Madrecha, Sankrecha, Bhurecha, Balecha, Tasera, Chachera, Rosia, Chanda, Nikumbha, Bhawar, and Bankat.^[70]

Chalukya or Solanki.

—Though we cannot trace the history of this branch of the Agnikulas to such periods of antiquity as the Pramara or Chauhan, it is from the deficiency of materials, rather than any want of celebrity, that we are unable to place it, in this respect, on a level with them. The tradition of the bard makes the Solankis important as princes of Sura on the Ganges, ere the Rathors obtained Kanauj.^[71] The genealogical test ^[72] claims Lohkot, said to be the ancient Lahore, as a residence, which makes them of the same Sakha (Madhwani) as the Chauhans. Certain it is, that in the eighth century we find the Langahas ^[73] and Togras inhabiting Multan and the surrounding country, the chief opponents of the Bhattis on their establishment in the desert. They were princes of Kalyan, on the Malabar coast,^[74] which city still exhibits vestiges of ancient grandeur. It was from Kalyan that a scion of the Solanki tree was taken, and engrafted on the royal stem of the Chawaras of Anhilwara Patan.

It was in S. 987 (A.D. 931) that Bhojraj, the last of the Chawaras, and the Salic law of India were both set aside, to make way for the young Solanki, Mulraj,^[75] who ruled Anhilwara for the space of fifty-eight years. During the reign of his son and successor, Chamund Rae,^[76] Mahmud of Ghazni carried his desolating arms into the kingdom of Anhilwara. With its wealth he raised those [98] magnificent trophies of his conquest, among which the ‘Celestial Bride’ might have vied with anything ever erected by man as a monument of folly.^[77] The wealth abstracted, as reported in the history of the conquerors, by this scourge of India, though deemed incredible, would obtain belief, if the commercial riches of Anhilwara could be appreciated. It was to India what Venice was to Europe, the entrepôt of the products of both the eastern and western hemispheres. It fully recovered the shock given by Mahmud and the desultory wars of his successors; and we find Siddharaja Jayasingha,^[78] the seventh from the founder, at the head of the richest, if not the most warlike, kingdom of India. Two-and-twenty principalities at one time owned his power, from the Carnatic to the base of the Himalaya Mountains; but his unwise successor drew upon himself the vengeance of the Chauhan, Prithwiraja, a slip of which race was engrafted, in the person of Kumarapala, on the genealogical tree of the Solankis;^[79] and it is a curious fact that this dynasty of the Balakaraes alone gives us two examples of the Salic law of India being violated. Kumarapala, installed on the throne of Anhilwara, ‘tied round his head the turban of the Solanki.’ He became of the tribe into which he was adopted. Kumarapala, as well as Siddharaja, was the patron of Buddhism;^[80] and the monuments erected under them and their successors claim our admiration, from their magnificence and the perfection of the arts; for at no period were they more cultivated than at the courts of Anhilwara.

The lieutenants of Shihābu-d-din disturbed the close of Kumarapal’s reign; and his successor, Balo Muldeo, closed this dynasty in S. 1284 (A.D. 1228), when a new dynasty, called the Vaghela (descendants of Siddharaja) under Bīsaldeo, succeeded.^[81] The dilapidations from religious persecution were repaired; Somnath, renowned as Delphos of old, rose from its ruins, and the kingdom of the Balakaraes was attaining its pristine magnificence, when, under the fourth prince, Karandeva, the angel of destruction appeared in the shape of Alau-d-din, and the kingdom of Anhilwara was annihilated. The lieutenants of the Tatar despot of Delhi let loose the spirit of intolerance and avarice on the rich cities and fertile plains of Gujarat and Saurashtra. In contempt of their faith, the altar of an Islamite Darvesh was placed in contact with the shrine of Adinath, on the [99] most accessible of their sacred mounts:^[82] the statues of Buddha [the Jain Tirthankaras] were thrown down, and the books containing the mysteries of their faith suffered the same fate as the Alexandrian library. The walls of Anhilwara were demolished; its foundations excavated, and again filled up with the fragments of their ancient temples.^[83]

The remnants of the Solanki dynasty were scattered over the land, and this portion of India remained for upwards of a century without any paramount head, until, by a singular dispensation of Providence, its splendour was renovated, and its foundations rebuilt, by an adventurer of the same race from which the Agnikulas were originally converts, though Saharan the Tak hid his name and his tribe under his new epithet of Zafar Khan, and as Muzaffar ascended the throne of Gujarat, which he left to his son. This son was Ahmad, who founded Ahmadabad, whose most splendid edifices were built from the ancient cities around it.^[84]

Bāghels.

—Though the stem of the Solankis was thus uprooted, yet was it not before many of its branches (Sakha), like their own indigenous bar-tree, had fixed themselves in other soils. The most conspicuous of these is the Baghela ^[85] family, which gave its name to an entire division of Hindustan; and Baghelkhand has now been ruled for many centuries by the descendants of Siddharaja.

Besides Bandhugarh, there are minor chieftainships still in Gujarat of the Baghela tribe. Of these, Pethapur and Tharad are the most conspicuous. One of the chieftains of the second class in Mewar is a Solanki, and traces his line immediately from Siddharaja: this is the chief of Rupnagar,^[86] whose stronghold commands one of the passes leading to Marwar, and whose family annals would furnish a fine picture of the state of border-feuds. Few of them, till of late years, have died natural deaths.

Pratihāra or Parihāra.

—Of this, the last and least of the Agnikulas, we have not much to say. The Pariharas never acted a conspicuous part in the history of Rajasthan. They are always discovered in a subordinate capacity, acting in feudal subjection to the Tuars of Delhi or the Chauhans of Ajmer; and the brightest page of their history is the record of an abortive attempt of Nahar Rao to maintain his independence against Prithwiraja. Though a failure, it has immortalized his name, and given to the scene of action,^[91] one of the passes of the Aravalli, a merited celebrity. Mandor^[91] (classically Maddodara) was the capital of the Parihars, and was the chief city of Marwar which owned the sway of this tribe prior to the invasion and settlement of the Rathors. It is placed five miles northward of the modern [101] Jodhpur, and preserves some specimens of the ancient Pali character, fragments of sculpture and Jain temples.

The Rathor emigrant princes of Kanauj found an asylum with the Parihars. They repaid it by treachery, and Chonda, a name celebrated in the Rathor annals, dispossessed the last of the Parihars, and pitched the flag of the Rathors on the battlements of Mandor. The power of the Parihars had, however, been much reduced previously by the princes of Mewar, who not only abstracted much territory from them, but assumed the title of its princes—Rana.^[92]

The Parihara is scattered over Rajasthan, but I am unaware of the existence of any independent chieftainship there. At the confluence of the Kuhari, the Sind, and the Chambal, there is a colony of this race, which has given its name to a commune of twenty-four villages, besides hamlets, situated amidst the ravines of these streams. They were nominally subjects of Sindhia; but it was deemed requisite for the line of defence along the Chambal that it should be included within the British demarcation, by which we incorporated with our rule the most notorious body of thieves in the annals of Thug history.

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.

—This tribe was once renowned in the history of India, though its name is now scarcely known, or only in the chronicles of the bard. Of its origin we are in ignorance. It belongs neither to the Solar nor Lunar race, and consequently we may presume it to be of Scythic origin.^[94] The name is unknown in Hindustan, and is confined, with many others originating from beyond the Indus, to the peninsula of Saurashtra. If foreign to India proper, its establishment must have been at a remote period, as we find individuals of it intermarrying with the Suryavansa ancestry of the present princes of Mewar, when this family were the lords of Valabhi.

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.

Tāk or Takshak.

—Takshak appears to be the generic term of the race from which the various Scythic tribes, the early invaders of India, branched off. It appears of more ancient application than Getae, which was the parent of innumerable sakha. It might not be judicious to separate them, though it would be speculative to say which was the primitive title of the races called Scythic, after their country, Sakatai or Sakadwipa, the land of the great Getae.

Abulghazi makes Taunak ^[101] the son of Turk or Targetai, who appears to be the Turushka of the Puranas, the Tukyuks of the Chinese historians, the nomadic Tokhari of Strabo, who aided to overturn the Greek kingdom of Bactria, and gave their name to the grand division of Asia, Tokharistan ^[102] or Turkistan: and there is every appearance of that singular race, the Tajik,^[103] still scattered over these [104] regions, and whose history appears a mystery, being the descendants of the Takshak.

It has been already observed, that ancient inscriptions in the Pali or Buddhist character have been discovered in various parts of Rajasthan, of the race called Tasta, Takshak, and Tak, relating to the tribes, the Mori [or Maurya], Pramara, their descendants. Naga and Takshak are synonymous appellations in Sanskrit for the snake, and the Takshak is the celebrated Nagvansa of the early heroic history of India. The Mahabharata describes, in its usual allegorical style, the wars between the Pandavas of Indraprastha and the Takshaks of the north. The assassination of Parikshita by the Takshak, and the exterminating warfare carried on against them by his son and successor, Janamejaya, who at last compelled them to sign tributary engagements, divested of its allegory,^[104] is plain historical fact.

When Alexander invaded India, he found the Paraitakai, the mountain (pahar) Tak, inhabiting the Paropamisos range; nor is it by any means unlikely that Taxiles,^[105] the ally of the Macedonian king, was the chief (es) of the Taks; and in the early history of the Bhatti princes of Jaisalmer, when driven from Zabulistan, they dispossessed the Taks on the Indus, and established themselves in their land, the capital of which was called Salivahanpura; and as the date of this event is given as 3008 of the Yudhishthira era, it is by no means unlikely that Salivahana, or Salbhan (who was a Takshak), the conqueror of the Tuar Vikrama, was of the very family dispossessed by the Bhattis, who compelled them to migrate to the south.

The calculated period of the invasion of the Takshaks, or Nagvansa, under Sheshnag, is about six or seven centuries before the Christian era, at which very [105] period the Scythic invasion of Egypt and Syria, “by the sons of Togarmah riding on horses” (the Aswas, or Asi), is alike recorded by the prophet Ezekiel and Diodorus. The Abu Mahatma calls the Takshaks “the sons of Himachal,” all evincing Scythic descent; and it was only eight reigns anterior to this change in the Lunar dynasties of India, that Parsvanath, the twenty-third Buddha [Jain Tirthankara], introduced his tenets into India, and fixed his abode in the holy mount Sarnet.^[106]

Enough of the ancient history of the Tak; we will now descend to more modern times, on which we shall be brief. We have already mentioned the Takshak Mori [or Maurya] as being lords of Chitor from a very early period; and but a few generations after the Guhilots supplanted the Moris, this palladium of Hindu liberty was assailed by the arms of Islam. We find amongst the numerous defenders who appear to have considered the cause of Chitor their own, “the Tak from Asirgarh.”^[107] This race appears to have retained possession of Asir for at least two centuries after this event, as its chieftain was one of the most conspicuous leaders in the array of Prithwiraja. In the poems of Chand he is called the “standard-bearer, Tak of Asir.”^[108]

This ancient race, the foe of Janamejaya and the friend of Alexander, closed its career in a blaze of splendour. The celebrity of the kings of Gujarat will make amends for the obscurity of the Taks of modern times, of whom a dynasty of fourteen kings followed each other in succession, commencing and ending with the proud title of Muzaffar. It was in the reign of Muhammad,^[109] son of the first Tughlak, that an accident to his nephew Firoz proved the dawn of the fortunes of the Tak; purchased, however, with the change of name and religion. Saharan the Tak was the first apostate of his line, who, under the name of Wajihu-l-mulk, concealed both his origin and tribe. His son, Zafar Khan, was raised by his patron Firoz to the government of Gujarat, about the period when Timur invaded India. Zafar availed himself of the weakness of his master and the distraction of the times, and mounted the throne of Gujarat under the name of [106] Muzaffar.^[110] He was assassinated by the hand of his grandson, Ahmad, who changed the ancient capital, Anhilwara, for the city founded by himself, and called Ahmadabad, one of the most splendid in the east. With the apostasy of the Tak,^[111] the name appears to have been obliterated from the tribes of Rajasthan; nor has my search ever discovered one of this name now existing.

Rehar	rbracket_80	Girasia petty chiefs in Malwa.
Dhunda
Sorathia
Harer^[51]