II. THE CHAULUKYAS OR SOLANKIS…

II. THE CHAULUKYAS OR SOLANKIS

(A.D. 961-1242)

[Authorities.] The next rulers are the Chaulukyas or Solankis (A.D. 964-1242) whose conversion to Jainism has secured them careful record by Jain chroniclers. The earliest writer on the Solankis, the learned Jain priest Hemachandra (A.D. 1089-1173), in his work called the Dvyásraya, has given a fairly full and correct account of the dynasty up to Siddharája (A.D. 1143). The work is said to have been begun by Hemachandra about A.D. 1160, and to have been finished and revised by another Jain monk named Abhayatilakagani in A.D. 1255. [515] The last chapter which is in Prakrit deals solely with king Kumárapála. This work is a grammar rather than a chronicle, still, though it has little reference to dates, it is a good collection of tales and descriptions. For chronology the best guide is the Vichárasreni which its author has taken pains to make the chief authority in dates. The Vichárasreni was written by Merutunga about A.D. 1314, some time after he wrote the Prabandhachintámani.

[The Name Chaulukya.] According to the Vichárasreni after the Chávadás, in A.D. 961 (Vaishakh Suddha 1017), began the reign of Múlarája the son of a daughter of the last Chávadá ruler. The name Chaulukya is a Sanskritised form, through an earlier form Chálukya, of the old names Chalkya, Chalikya, Chirîkya, Chálukya of the great Dakhan dynasty (A.D. 552-973), made to harmonise with the Puránic-looking story that the founder of the dynasty sprang from the palm or chuluka of Brahma. The form Chaulukya seems to have been confined to authors and writers. It was used by the great Dakhan poet Bilhana (c. 1050 A.D.) and by the Anahilaváda chroniclers. In Gujarát the popular form of the word seems to have been Solaki or Solanki (a dialectic variant of Chalukya), a name till lately used by Gujarát bards. The sameness of name seems to show the Dakhan and Gujarát dynasties to be branches of one stock. No materials are available to trace the original seat of the family or to show when and whence they came to Gujarát. The balance of probability is, as Dr. Bühler holds, that Múlarája's ancestors came from the north. [516]

[Múlarája, A.D. 961-996.] The Sukritasankírtana says that the last Chávadá king Bhúbhata was succeeded by his sister's son Múlarája. Of the family or country of Múlarája's father no details are given. The Prabandhachintámani calls Múlarája the sister's son of Sámantasimha and gives the following details. In A.D. 930 of the family of Bhuiyada (who destroyed Jayasekhara) were three brothers Ráji, Bija, and Dandaka, who stopped at Anahilaváda on their way back from a pilgrimage to Somanátha in the guise of Kárpatika or Kápdi beggars. The three brothers attended a cavalry parade held by king Sámantasimha. An objection taken by Ráji to some of the cavalry movements pleased Sámantasimha, who, taking him to be the scion of some noble family, gave him his sister Líládeví in marriage. Líládeví died pregnant and the child, which was taken alive from its dead mother's womb was called Múlarája, because the operation was performed when the Múla constellation was in power. Múlarája grew into an able and popular prince and helped to extend the kingdom of his maternal uncle. In a fit of intoxication Sámantasimha ordered Múlarája to be placed on the throne. He afterwards cancelled the grant. But Múlarája contended that a king once installed could not be degraded. He collected troops defeated and slew his uncle and succeeded to the throne in A.D. 942 (S. 998). The main facts of this tale, that Múlarája's father was one Ráji of the Chálukya family, that his mother was a Chávadá. princess, and that he came to the Chávadá throne by killing his maternal uncle, appear to be true. That Múlarája's father's name was Ráji is proved by Dr. Bühler's copperplate of Múlarája. [517] Merutunga's details that Ráji came in disguise to Anahilaváda, took the fancy of Sámantasimha, and received his sister in marriage seem fictions in the style common in the bardic praises of Rájput princes. Dr. Bühler's copperplate further disproves the story as it calls Múlarája the son of the illustrious Ráji, the great king of kings Mahárájádhirája, a title which would not be given to a wandering prince. Ráji appears to have been of almost equal rank with the Chávadás. The Ratnamálá calls Ráji fifth in descent from Bhuvada, his four predecessors being Karnáditya, Chándráditya, Somáditya, and Bhuvanáditya. But the Ratnamálá list is on the face of it wrong, as it gives five instead of seven or eight kings to fill the space of over 200 years between Jayasekhara and Múlarája.

Most Jain chroniclers begin the history of Anahilaváda with Múlarája who with the Jains is the glory of the dynasty. After taking the small Chávadá kingdom Múlarája spread his power in all directions, overrunning Káthiáváda and Kacch on the west, and fighting Bárappa of Láta or South Gujarát on the south, and Vigraharája king of Ajmir on the north. The Ajmir kings were called Sapádalaksha. Why they were so called is not known. This much is certain that Sapádalaksha is the Sanskrit form of the modern Sewálik. It would seem that the Choháns, whom the Gujarát Jain chroniclers call Sapádalakshíya, must have come to Gujarát from the Sewálik hills. After leaving the Sewálik hills the capital was at Ajmir, which is usually said to have been first fortified by the Chohán king Ajayapála (A.D. 1174-1177). [518] This story seems invented by the Choháns. The name Ajmir appears to be derived from the Mehrs who were in power in these parts between the fifth and the eighth centuries. The Hammíramahákávya begins the Chohán genealogy with Vásudeva (A.D. 780) and states that Vásudeva's fourth successor Ajayapála established the hill fort of Ajmir. About this time (A.D. 840) the Choháns seem to have made settlements in the Ajmir country and to have harassed Gujarát. Vigraharája the tenth in succession from Vásudeva is described as killing Múlarája and weakening the Gurjjara country. [519] The author of the Prabandhachintámani gives the following details. The Sapádalaksha or Ajmir king entered Gujarát to attack Múlarája and at the same time from the south Múlarája's territory was invaded by Bárappa a general of king Tailapa of Telingána. [520] Unable to face both enemies Múlarája at his minister's advice retired to Kanthádurga apparently Kanthkot in Cutch. [521] He remained there till the Navarátra or Nine-Night festival at the close of the rains when he expected the Sapádalaksha king would have to return to Ajmir to worship the goddess Sákambharí when Bárappa would be left alone. At the close of the rains the Sapádalaksha king fixed his camp near a place called Sákambharí and bringing the goddess Sákambharí there held the Nine-Night festival. This device disappointed Múlarája. He sent for his sámantas or nobles and gave them presents. He told them his plans and called on them to support him in attacking the Sapádalaksha king. Múlarája then mounted a female elephant with no attendant but the driver and in the evening came suddenly to the Ajmir camp. He dismounted and holding a drawn sword in his hand said to the doorkeeper 'What is your king doing. Go and tell your lord that Múlarája waits at his door.' While the attendant was on his way to give the message, Múlarája pushed him on one side and himself went into the presence. The doorkeeper called 'Here comes Múlarája.' Before he could be stopped Múlarája forced his way in and took his seat on the throne. The Ajmir king in consternation asked 'Are you Múlarája?' Múlarája answered 'I would regard him as a brave king who would meet me face to face in battle. While I was thinking no such brave enemy exists, you have arrived. I ask no better fortune than to fight with you. But as soon as you are come, like a bee falling in at dinner time, Bárappa the general of king Tailapa of Telingana has arrived to attack me. While I am punishing him you should keep quiet and not give me a side blow.' The Ajmir king said, 'Though you are a king, you have come here alone like a foot soldier, not caring for your safety. I will be your ally for life.' Múlarája replied 'Say not so.' He refused the Rája's invitation to dine, and leaving sword in hand mounted his elephant and with his nobles attacked the camp of Bárappa. Bárappa was killed and eighteen of his elephants and 10,000 of his horses fell into Múlarája's hands. While returning with the spoil Múlarája received news that the Sapádalaksha king had fled.

This story of the author of the Prabandhachintámani differs from that given by the author of the Hammírakávya who describes Múlarája as defeated and slain. The truth seems to be that the Ajmír king defeated Múlarája and on Múlarája's submission did not press his advantage. In these circumstances Múlarája's victory over Bárappa seems improbable. The Dvyásraya devotes seventy-five verses (27-101) of its sixth chapter to the contest between Bárappa and Múlarája. The details may be thus summarised. Once when Múlarája received presents from various Indian kings Dvárappa [522] king of Látadesa sent an ill-omened elephant. The marks being examined by royal officers and by prince Chámunda, they decided the elephant would bring destruction on the king who kept him. The elephant was sent back in disgrace and Múlarája and his son started with an army to attack Látadesa and avenge the insult. In his march Múlarája first came to the Svabhravatí or Sábarmatí which formed the boundary of his kingdom, frightening the people. From the Sábarmatí he advanced to the ancient Purí [523] where also the people became confused. The Láta king prepared for fight, and was slain by Chámunda in single combat. Múlarája advanced to Broach where Bárappa who was assisted by the island kings opposed him. Chámunda overcame them and slew Bárappa. After this success Múlarája and Chámunda returned to Anahilapura. [524]

The Dvyásraya styles Bárappa king of Látadesa; the Prabandhachintámani calls him a general of Tailapa king of Telingána; the Sukritasankírtana a general of the Kanyákubja king; and the Kírtikaumudí [525] a general of the Lord of Láta.

Other evidence proves that at the time of Múlarája a Chaulukya king named Bárappa did reign in Látadesa. The Surat grant of Kírtirája grandson of Bárappa is dated A.D. 1018 (Saka 940). This, taking twenty years to a king, brings Bárappa's date to A.D. 978 (Saka 900), a year which falls in the reign of Múlarája (A.D. 961-996; S. 1027-1053). The statement in the Prabandhachintámani that Bárappa was a general of Tailapa seems correct. The southern form of the name Bárappa supports the statement. And as Tailapa overthrew the Ráshtrakútas in A.D. 972 (Saka 894) he might well place a general in military charge of Láta, and allow him practical independence. This would explain why the Dvyásraya calls Bárappa king of Látadesa and why the Kírtikaumudí calls him general of the Lord of Láta.

One of Múlarája's earliest wars was with Graharipu the Ábhíra or Chúdásamá ruler of Sorath. [526] According to Múlarája's bards, the cause of war was Graharipu's oppression of pilgrims to Prabhása. Graharipu's capital was Vámanasthalí, the modern Vanthalí nine miles west of Junágadh, and the fort of Durgapalli which Graharipu is said to have established must be Junágadh itself which was not then a capital. Graharipu is described as a cow-eating Mlechha and a grievous tyrant. He is said to have had much influence over Lákhá son of king Phula of Kacch and to have been helped by Turks and other Mlechhas. When Múlarája reached the Jambumáli river, he was met by Graharipu and his army. With Graharipu was Lákhá of Kacch, the king of Sindh probably a Sumrá, Mewás Bhilas, and the sons of Graharipu's wife Nílí who had been summoned from near the Bhadar river by a message in the Yavana language. [527] With Múlarája were the kings of Siláprastha, [528] of Márwár, of Kásí, of Arbuda or Abu, and of Srímála or Bhínmál. Múlarája had also his own younger brother Gangámah, his friend king Revatímitra, and Bhils. It is specially mentioned that in this expedition Múlarája received no help from the sons of his paternal uncles Bíja and Dandaka. The fight ended in Graharipu being made prisoner by Múlarája, and in Lákhá being slain with a spear. After the victory Múlarája went to Prabhása, worshipped the linga, and returned to Anahilaváda with his army and 108 elephants.

According to the author of the Prabandhachintámani Lákhá met his death in a different contest with Múlarája. Lákhá who is described as the son of Phuladá, and Kámalatá daughter of Kírttirája a Parmár king, is said to have been invincible because he was under the protection of king Yasovarman of Málwa. He defeated Múlarája's army eleven times. In a twelfth encounter Múlarája besieged Lákhá in Kapilakot, slew him in single combat, and trod on his flowing beard. Enraged at this insult to her dead son Lákhá's mother called down on Múlarája's descendants the curse of the spider poison that is of leprosy. [529]

Mr. Forbes, apparently from bardic sources, states that on his wife's death Ráji the father of Múlarája went to the temple of Vishnu at Dwárká. On his return he visited the court of Lákhá Phuláni and espoused Lákhá's sister Ráyáji by whom he had a son named Rákháich. This marriage proved the ruin of Ráji. In a dispute about precedence Lákhá slew Ráji and many of his Rájput followers, his wife Ráyáji becoming a Satí. Bíja the uncle of Múlarája urged his nephew to avenge his father's death and Múlarája was further incited against Lákhá because Lákhá harboured Rákháich the younger son of Ráji at his court as a rival to Múlarája.

According to the Dvyásraya, either from the rising power of his son or from repentance for his own rough acts, after Chámunda's victory over Bárappa Múlarája installed him as ruler and devoted himself to religion and charity. According to the Prabandhachintámani Múlarája built in Anahilaváda a Jain temple named Múlavasatiká. But as the Nandi symbol on his copperplate shows that Múlarája was a devoted Saivite, it is possible that this temple was built by some Jain guild or community and named after the reigning chief. [530] Múlarája built a Mahádeva temple called Múlasvámi in Anahilaváda, and, in honour of Somanátha, he built the temple of Mulesvara at Mandali-nagara where he went at the bidding of the god. [531] He also built at Anahilaváda a temple of Mahádeva called Tripurushaprásáda on a site to which the tradition attaches that seeing Múlarája daily visiting the temple of Múlanáthadeva at Mandali, Somanátha Mahádeva being greatly pleased promised to bring the ocean to Anahilaváda. Somanátha came, and the ocean accompanying the god certain ponds became brackish. In honour of these salt pools Múlarája built the Tripurushaprásáda. Looking for some one to place in charge of this temple, Múlarája heard of an ascetic named Kanthadi at Siddhapura on the banks of the Sarasvatí who used to fast every other day and on the intervening day lived on five morsels of food. Múlarája offered this sage the charge of the temple. The sage declined saying 'Authority is the surest path to hell.' Eventually Vayajalladeva a disciple of the sage undertook the management on certain conditions. Múlarája passed most of his days at the holy shrine of Siddhapura, the modern Sidhpur on the Sarasvatí about fifteen miles north-east of Anahilaváda. At Sidhpur Múlarája made many grants to Bráhmans. Several branches of Gujarát Bráhmans, Audíchyas Srígaudas and Kanojias, trace their origin in Gujarát to an invitation from Múlarája to Siddhapura and the local Puránas and Máhátmyas confirm the story. As the term Audíchya means Northerner Múlarája may have invited Bráhmans from some such holy place as Kurukshetra which the Audíchyas claim as their home. From Kanyákubja in the Madhyadesa between the Ganges and the Yamuná another equally holy place the Kanojías may have been invited. The Srí Gaudas appear to have come from Bengal and Tirhut. Gauda and Tirhut Bráhmans are noted Tántriks and Mantrasástris a branch of learning for which both the people and the rulers of Gujarát have a great fondness. Grants of villages were made to these Bráhmans. Sidhpur was given to the Audíchyas, Simhapura or Sihor in Káthiáváda to some other colony, and Stambhatírtha or Cambay to the Srí Gaudas. At Siddhapura Múlarája built the famous temple called the Rudramahálaya or the great shrine of Rudra. According to tradition Múlarája did not complete the Rudramahálaya and Siddharája finished it. In spite of this tradition it does not appear that Múlarája died leaving the great temple unfinished as a copperplate of A.D. 987 (S. 1043) records that Múlarája made the grant after worshipping the god of the Rudramahálaya on the occasion of a solar eclipse on the fifteenth of the dark half of Mágha. It would seem therefore that Múlarája built one large Rudramahálaya which Siddharája may have repaired or enlarged. Múlarája is said while still in health to have mounted the funeral pile, an act which some writers trace to remorse and others to unknown political reasons. The Vichárasreni gives the length of Múlarája's reign at thirty-five years A.D. 961-996 (S. 1017-1052); the Prabandhachintámani begins the reign at A.D. 942 (S. 998) and ends it at A.D. 997 (S. 1053) that is a length of fifty-five years. [532] Of the two, thirty-five years seems the more probable, as, if the traditional accounts are correct, Múlarája can scarcely have been a young man when he overthrew his uncle's power.

[Chámunda, A.D. 997-1010.] Of Múlarája's son and successor Chámunda no historical information is available. The author of the Prabandhachintámani assigns him a reign of thirteen years. The author of the Dvyásraya says that he had three sons Vallabha Rája, Durlabha Rája, and Nága Rája. According to one account Chámunda installed Vallabha in A.D. 1010 (S. 1066) and went on pilgrimage to Benares. On his passage through Málwa Muñja the Málwa king carried off Chámunda's umbrella and other marks of royalty. [533] Chámunda went on to Benares in the guise of a hermit. On his return he prayed his son to avenge the insult offered by the king of Málwa. Vallabha started with an army but died of small-pox. The author of the Prabandhachintámani gives Chámunda a reign of six months, while the author of the Vichárasreni entirely drops his name and gives a reign of fourteen years to Vallabha made up of the thirteen years of Chámunda and the six months of Vallabha. This seems to be a mistake. It would seem more correct, as is done in several copperplate lists, to omit Vallabha, since he must have reigned jointly with his father and his name is not wanted for purposes of succession. The Vichárasreni and the Prabandhachintámani agree in ending Vallabha's reign in A.D. 1010 (S. 1066). The author of the Dvyásraya states that Chámunda greatly lamenting the death of Vallabha installed Vallabha's younger brother Durlabha, and himself retired to die at Suklatírtha on the Narbadá.

[Durlabha, A.D. 1010-1022.] Durlabha whom the Sukritasankírtana also calls Jagatjhampaka or World Guardian came to the throne in A.D. 1010 (S. 1066). The Prabandhachintámani gives the length of his reign at eleven years and six months while the Vichárasreni makes it twelve years closing it in A.D. 1022 (S. 1078). The author of the Dvyásraya says that along with his brother Nága Rája, Durlabha attended the Svayamvara or bridegroom-choosing of Durlabha Deví the sister of Mahendra the Rája of Nadol in Márwár. The kings of Anga, Kásí, Avantí, Chedí, Kuru, Húna, Mathurá, Vindhya, and Andhra were also present. [534] The princess chose Durlabha and Mahendra gave his younger sister Lakshmí to Durlabha's brother Nága Rája. The princess' choice of Durlabha drew on him the enmity of certain of the other kings all of whom he defeated. The brothers then returned to Anahilaváda where Durlabha built a lake called Durlabhasarovara. The author of the Prabandhachintámani says that Durlabha gave up the kingdom to his son (?) Bhíma. [535] He also states that Durlabha went on pilgrimage and was insulted on the way by Muñja king of Málwa. This seems the same tale which the Dvyásraya tells of Chámunda. Since Muñja cannot have been a cotemporary of Durlabha the Dvyásraya's account seems correct.

[Bhíma I. A.D. 1022-1064.] Durlabha was succeeded by his nephew Bhíma the son of Durlabha's younger brother Nága Rája. The author of the Dvyásraya says that Durlabha wishing to retire from the world offered the kingdom to his nephew Bhíma; that Bhíma declined in favour of his father Nága Rája; that Nága Rája refused; that Durlabha and Nága Rája persuaded Bhíma to take the government; and that after installing Bhíma the two brothers died together. Such a voluntary double death sounds unlikely unless the result was due to the machinations of Bhíma. The Prabandhachintámani gives Bhíma a reign of fifty-two years from A.D. 1022 to 1074 (S. 1078-1130), while the Vichárasreni reduces his reign to forty-two years placing its close in A.D. 1064 (S. 1120). Forty-two years would seem to be correct as another copy of the Prabandhachintámani has 42.

Two copperplates of Bhíma are available one dated A.D. 1030 (S. 1086) eight or nine years after he came to the throne, the other from Kacch in A.D. 1037 (S. 1093).

Bhíma seems to have been more powerful than either of his predecessors. According to the Dvyásraya his two chief enemies were the kings of Sindh and of Chedí or Bundelkhand. He led a victorious expedition against Hammuka the king of Sindh, who had conquered the king of Sivasána and another against Karna king of Chedí who paid tribute and submitted. The Prabandhachintámani has a verse, apparently an old verse interpolated, which says that on the Málwa king Bhoja's death, while sacking Dhárápuri, Karna took Bhíma as his coadjutor, and that afterwards Bhíma's general Dámara took Karna captive and won from him a gold mandapiká or canopy and images of Ganesa and Nílakanthesvara Mahádeva. Bhíma is said to have presented the canopy to Somanátha.

When Bhíma was engaged against the king of Sindh, Kulachandra the general of the Málwa king Bhoja with all the Málwa feudatories, invaded Anahilaváda, sacked the city, and sowed shell-money at the gate where the time-marking gong was sounded. So great was the loss that the 'sacking of Kulachandra' has passed into a proverb. Kulachandra also took from Anahilaváda an acknowledgment of victory or jayapatra. On his return Bhoja received Kulachandra with honour but blamed him for not sowing salt instead of shell-money. [536] He said the shell-money is an omen that the wealth of Málwa will flow to Gujarát. An unpublished inscription of Bhoja's successor Udayáditya in a temple at Udepur near Bhilsá confirms the above stating that Bhíma was conquered by Bhoja's officers. [537]

The Solanki kings of Anahilapura being Saivites held the god Somanátha of Prabhása in great veneration. The very ancient and holy shrine of Prabhása has long been a place of special pilgrimage. As early as the Yádavas of Dwárká, [538] pilgrimages to Prabhása are recorded but the Mahábhárata makes no mention either of Somanátha or of any other Saivite shrine. The shrine of Somanátha was probably not established before the time of the Valabhis (A.D. 480-767). As the Valabhi kings were most open-handed in religious gifts, it was probably through their grants that the Somanátha temple rose to importance. The Solankis were not behind the Valabhis in devotion to Somanátha. To save pilgrims from oppression Múlarája fought Graharipu the Ábhíra king of Sorath. [539] Múlarája afterwards went to Prabhása and also built temples in Gujarát in honour of the god Somanátha. As Múlarája's successors Chámunda and Durlabha continued firm devotees of Somanátha during their reigns (A.D. 997-1022) the wealth of the temple must have greatly increased.

[Mahmúd's Invasion, A.D. 1024.] No Gujarát Hindu writer refers to the destruction of the great temple soon after Bhíma's accession. [540] But the Musalmán historians place beyond doubt that in A.D. 1024 the famous tenth raid of [Somanátha, A.D. 1024.] Mahmúd of Ghazni, ended in the destruction and plunder of Somanátha. [541]

Of the destruction of Somanátha the earliest Musalmán account, of Ibn Asír (A.D. 1160-1229), supplies the following details: In the year A.D. 1024 (H. 414) Mahmúd captured several forts and cities in Hind and he also took the idol called Somanátha. This idol was the greatest of all the idols of Hind. At every eclipse [542] the Hindus went on pilgrimage to the temple, and there congregated to the number of a hundred thousand persons. According to their doctrine of transmigration the Hindus believe that after separation from the body the souls of men meet at Somanátha; and that the ebb and flow of the tide is the worship paid to the best of its power by the sea to the idol. [543] All that is most precious in India was brought to Somanátha. The temple attendants received the most valuable presents, and the temple was endowed with more than 10,000 villages. [544] In the temple were amassed jewels of the most exquisite quality and of incalculable value. The people of India have a great river called Ganga to which they pay the highest honour and into which they cast the bones of their great men, in the belief that the deceased will thus secure an entrance to heaven. Though between this river and Somanátha is a distance of about 1200 miles (200 parasangs) water was daily brought from it to wash the idol. [545] Every day a thousand Bráhmans performed the worship and introduced visitors. [546] The shaving of the heads and beards of pilgrims employed three hundred barbers. [547] Three hundred and fifty persons sang and danced at the gate of the temple, [548] every one receiving a settled daily allowance. When Mahmúd was gaining victories and demolishing idols in North India, the Hindus said Somanátha is displeased with these idols. If Somanátha had been satisfied with them no one could have destroyed or injured them. When Mahmúd heard this he resolved on making a campaign to destroy Somanátha, believing that when the Hindus saw their prayers and imprecations to be false and futile they would embrace the Faith.

So he prayed to the Almighty for aid, and with 30,000 horse besides volunteers left Ghazni on the 10th Sha'bán (H. 414, A.D. 1024). He took the road to Multán and reached it in the middle of Ramzán. The road from Multán to India lay through a barren desert without inhabitants or food. Mahmúd collected provisions for the passage and loading 30,000 camels with water and corn started for Anahilaváda. After he had crossed the desert he perceived on one side a fort full of people in which place there were wells. [549] The leaders came to conciliate him, but he invested the place, and God gave him victory over it, for the hearts of the people failed them through fear. He brought the place under the sway of Islám, killed the inhabitants, and broke in pieces their images. His men carrying water with them marched for Anahilaváda, where they arrived at the beginning of Zílkáda.

The Chief of Anahilaváda, called Bhím, fled hastily, and abandoning his city went to a certain fort for safety and to prepare for war. Mahmúd pushed on for Somanátha. On his march he came to several forts in which were many images serving as chamberlains or heralds of Somanátha. These Mahmúd called Shaitán or devils. He killed the people, destroyed the fortifications, broke the idols in pieces, and through a waterless desert marched to Somanátha. In the desert land he met 20,000 fighting men whose chiefs would not submit. He sent troops against them, defeated them, put them to flight, and plundered their possessions. From the desert he marched to Dabalwárah, [550] two days' journey from Somanátha. The people of Dabalwárah stayed in the city believing that the word of Somanátha would drive back the invaders. Mahmúd took the place, slew the men, plundered their property, and marched to Somanátha.

Reaching Somanátha on a Thursday in the middle of Zílkáda Mahmúd beheld a strong fortress built on the sea-shore, so that its walls were washed by the waves. [551] From the walls the people jeered at the Musalmáns. Our deity, they said, will cut off the last man of you and destroy you all. On the morrow which was Friday the assailants advanced to the assault. When the Hindus saw how the Muhammadans fought they abandoned their posts and left the walls. The Musalmáns planted their ladders and scaled the walls. From the top they raised their war-cry, and showed the might of Islám. Still their loss was so heavy that the issue seemed doubtful. A body of Hindus hurried to Somanátha, cast themselves on the ground before him, and besought him to grant them victory. Night came on and the fight was stayed.

Early next morning Mahmúd renewed the battle. His men made greater havoc among the Hindus till they drove them from the town to the house of their idol Somanátha. At the gate of the temple the slaughter was dreadful. Band after band of the defenders entered the temple and standing before Somanátha with their hands clasped round their necks wept and passionately entreated him. Then they issued forth to fight and fought till they were slain. The few left alive took to the sea in boats but the Musalmáns overtook them and some were killed and some were drowned.

The temple of Somanátha rested on fifty-six pillars of teakwood covered with lead. [552] The idol was in a dark chamber. The height of the idol was five cubits and its girth three cubits. This was what appeared to the eye; two cubits were hidden in the basement. It had no appearance of being sculptured. Mahmúd seized it, part of it he burnt, and part he carried with him to Ghazni, where he made it a step at the entrance of the Great Mosque. [553] The dark shrine was lighted by exquisitely jewelled chandeliers. Near the idol was a chain of gold 200 mans in weight. To the chain bells were fastened. And when each watch of the night was over the chain was shaken and the ringing of the bells roused a fresh party of Bráhmans to carry on the worship. In the treasury which was near the shrine were many idols of gold and silver. Among the treasures were veils set with jewels, every jewel of immense value. What was found in the temple was worth more than two millions of dinárs. Over fifty thousand Hindus were slain. [554]

After the capture of Somanátha, Mahmúd received intelligence that Bhím the chief of Anahilaváda had gone to the fort of Khandahat, [555] about 240 miles (40 parasangs) from Somanátha between that place and the desert. Mahmúd marched to Khandahat. When he came before it he questioned some men who were hunting as to the tide. He learned that the ford was practicable, but that if the wind blew a little the crossing was dangerous. Mahmúd prayed to the Almighty and entered the water. He and his forces passed safely and drove out the enemy. From Khandahat he returned intending to proceed against Mansúra in central Sindh, whose ruler was an apostate Muhammadan. At the news of Mahmúd's approach the chief fled into the date forests. Mahmúd followed, and surrounding him and his adherents, many of them were slain, many drowned, and few escaped. Mahmúd then went to Bhátiá, and after reducing the inhabitants to obedience, returned to Ghazni where he arrived on the 10th Safar 417 H. (A.D. 1026).

The Rauzatu-s-safá of Mirkhand supplements these details with the following account of Mahmúd's arrangements for holding Gujarát: 'It is related that when Sultán Mahmúd had achieved the conquest of Somanátha he wished to fix his residence there for some years because the country was very extensive and possessed many advantages among them several mines which produced pure gold. Indian rubies were brought from Sarandíp, one of the dependencies of the kingdom of Gujarát. His ministers represented to Mahmúd that to forsake Khurásán which had been won from his enemies after so many battles and to make Somanátha the seat of government was very improper. At last the king made up his mind to return and ordered some one to be appointed to hold and carry on the administration of the country. The ministers observed that as it was impossible for a stranger to maintain possession he should assign the country to one of the native chiefs. The Sultán accordingly held a council to settle the nomination, in concurrence with such of the inhabitants as were well disposed towards him. Some of them represented to him that amongst the ancient royal families no house was so noble as that of the Dábshilíms of whom only one member survived, and he had assumed the habit of a Bráhman, and was devoted to philosophical pursuits and austerity.' [556]

That Mahmúd should have found it necessary to appoint some local chief to keep order in Gujarát is probable. It is also probable that he would choose some one hostile to the defeated king. It has been suggested above that Bhíma's uncle Durlabha did not retire but was ousted by his nephew and that the story of Vallabha and Durlabha dying together pointed to some usurpation on the part of Bhíma. The phrase the Dábshilíms seems to refer either to Durlabhasena or his son. Whoever was chosen must have lost his power soon after Mahmúd's departure. [557]

[Bhíma I. A.D. 1022-1064.] An inscription at Somanátha shows that soon after Mahmúd was gone Bhímadeva began to build a temple of stone in place of the former temple of brick and wood.

A few years later Bhíma was on bad terms with Dhandhuka the Paramára chief of Ábu, and sent his general Vimala to subdue him. Dhandhuka submitted and made over to Vimala the beautiful Chitrakûta peak of Ábu, where, in A.D. 1032 (S. 1088), Vimala built the celebrated Jain temples known as Vimalavasahi still one of the glories of Ábu. [558]

Bhíma had three wives Udayámatí who built a step-well at Anahilaváda, Bukuládeví, and another. These ladies were the mothers of Karna, Kshemarája, and Múlarája. Of the three sons Múlarája, though his mother's name is unknown, was the eldest and the heir-apparent. Of the kindly Múlarája the author of the Prabandhachintámani tells the following tale: In a year of scarcity the Kutumbikas or cultivators of Vishopaka and Dandáhi found themselves unable to pay the king his share of the land-produce. Bhímarája sent a minister to inquire and the minister brought before the king all the well-to-do people of the defaulting villages. One day prince Múlarája saw these men talking to one another in alarm. Taking pity on them he pleased the king by his skilful riding. The king asked him to name a boon and the prince begged that the demand on the villagers might be remitted. The boon was granted, the ryots went home in glee, but within three days Múlarája was dead. Next season yielded a bumper harvest, and the people came to present the king with his share for that year as well as with the remitted share for the previous year. Bhímdev declined to receive the arrears. A jury appointed by the king settled that the royal share of the produce for both years should be placed in the king's hands for the erection of a temple called the new Tripurushaprásáda for the spiritual welfare of prince Múlarája. [559]

Bhíma reigned forty-two years. Both the Prabandhachintámani and the Vichárasreni mention Karna as his successor. According to the Dvyásraya Bhíma, wishing to retire to a religious life, offered the succession to Kshemarája. But Kshemarája also was averse from the labour of ruling and it was settled that Karna should succeed.

Bhíma died soon after and Kshemarája retired to a holy place on the Sarasvatí named Mundakesvara not far from Anahilaváda. Karna is said to have granted Dahithalí a neighbouring village to Devaprasáda the son of Kshemarája that he might attend on his father in his religious seclusion. But as the Kumárapálacharita mentions Kshemarája being settled at Dahithalí as a ruler not as an ascetic it seems probable that Dahithalí was granted to Kshemarája for maintenance as villages are still granted to the bháyás or brethren of the ruler.

[Karna, A.D. 1064-1094.] Karna who came to the throne in A.D. 1064 (S. 1120) had a more peaceful reign than his predecessors. He was able to build charitable public works among them a temple called Karna-meru at Anahilaváda. His only war was an expedition against Áshá Bhil, chief of six lákhs [560] of Bhils residing at Áshápallí the modern village of Asával near Ahmadábád. [561] Áshá was defeated and slain. In consequence of an omen from a local goddess named Kochharva, [562] Karna built her a temple in Asával and also built temples to Jayantí Deví and Karnesvara Mahádeva. He made a lake called Karnaságara and founded a city called Karnávatí which he made his capital.

Karna had three ministers Muñjála, Sántu, and Udaya. Udaya was a Srímálí Vániá of Márwár, who had settled in Anahilaváda and who was originally called Udá. Sántu built a Jain temple called Sántu-vasahi and Udá built at Karnávatí a large temple called Udaya-varáha, containing seventy-two images of Tirthankars, twenty-four past twenty-four present and twenty-four to come. By different wives Udá had five sons, Áhada or Asthada, Cháhada, Báhada, Ámbada, and Sollá, of whom the last three were half brothers of the first two. [563] Except Sollá, who continued a merchant and became very wealthy, all the sons entered the service of the state and rose to high stations during the reign of Kumárapála.

In late life Karna married Miyánalladeví daughter of Jayakesi son of Subhakesi king of the Karnátaka. According to the Dvyásraya a wandering painter showed Karna the portrait of a princess whom he described as daughter of Jayakesi the Kadamba king [564] of Chandrapura [565] in the Dakhan, and who he said had taken a vow to marry Karna. In token of her wish to marry Karna the painter said the princess had sent Karna an elephant. Karna went to see the present and found on the elephant a beautiful princess who had come so far in the hope of winning him for a husband. According to the Prabandhachintámani Karna found the princess ugly and refused to marry her. On this the princess with eight attendants determined to burn themselves on a funeral pyre and Udayámatí Karna's mother also declared that if he did not relent she too would be a sacrifice. Under this compulsion Karna married the princess but refused to treat her as a wife. The minister Muñjála, learning from a kañchukí or palace-servant that the king loved a certain courtezan, contrived that Miyánalladeví should take the woman's place, a device still practised by ministers of native states. Karna fell into the snare and the queen became pregnant by him, having secured from the hand of her husband his signet ring as a token which could not be disclaimed. Thus in Karna's old age Miyánalladeví became the mother of the illustrious Siddharája Jayasimha, who, according to a local tradition quoted by Mr. Forbes, first saw the light at Pálanpur. [566] When three years old the precocious Siddharája climbed and sat upon the throne. This ominous event being brought to the king's notice he consulted his astrologers who advised that from that day Siddharája should be installed as heir-apparent.

The Gujarát chronicles do not record how or when Karna died. It appears from a manuscript that he was reigning in A.D. 1089 (S. 1145). [567] The Hammíramahákávya says 'The illustrious Karnadeva was killed in battle by king Dussala of Sákambharí,' and the two appear to have been cotemporaries. [568] The author of the Dvyásraya says that Karna died fixing his thoughts on Vishnu, recommending to Siddharája his cousin Devaprasáda son of Kshemarája. According to the Prabandhachintámani Vichárasreni and Sukritasankírtana Karna died in A.D. 1094 (S. 1150).

[Siddharája Jayasingha, A.D. 1094-1143.] As, at the time of his father's death, Siddharája was a minor [569] the reins of government must have passed into the hands of his mother Miyánalladeví. That the succession should have been attended with struggle and intrigue is not strange. According to the Dvyásraya Devaprasáda, the son of Kshemarája burned himself on the funeral pile shortly after the death of Karna, an action which was probably the result of some intrigue regarding the succession. Another intrigue ended in the death of Madanapála brother of Karna's mother queen Udayámatí, at the hands of the minister Sántu, who along with Muñjála and Udá, helped the queen-mother Miyánalladeví during the regency. Muñjála and Sántu continued in office under Siddharája. Another minister built a famous Jain temple named Mahárájabhuvana in Sidhpur at the time when Siddharája built the Rudramálá. An inscription from a temple near Bhadresar in Kacch dated A.D. 1139 (S. 1195 Áshádha Vad 10, Sunday), in recording grants to Audíchya Bráhmans to carry on the worship in an old temple of Udalesvara and in a new temple of Kumárapálesvara built by Kumárapála son of the great prince Ásapála, [570] notes that Dádáka was then minister of Siddharája. Among his generals the best known was a chief named Jagaddeva (Jag Dev), commonly believed to be a Paramára, many of whose feats of daring are recorded in bardic and popular romances. [571] Though Jag Dev is generally called a Paramára nothing of his family is on record. The author of the Prabandhachintámani describes Jagaddeva as a thrice valiant warrior held in great respect by Siddharája. After Siddharája's death Jagaddeva went to serve king Permádi to whose mother's family he was related. [572] Permádi gave him a chiefship and sent him to attack Málava.

When Siddharája attained manhood his mother prepared to go in great state on pilgrimage to Somanátha. She went with rich offerings as far as Báhuloda apparently the large modern village of Bholáda on the Gujarát-Káthiáváda frontier about twenty-two miles south-west of Dholká. At this frontier town the Anahilaváda kings levied a tax on all pilgrims to Somanátha. Many of the pilgrims unable to pay the tax had to return home in tears. Miyánalladeví was so saddened by the woes of the pilgrims that she stopped her pilgrimage and returned home. Siddharája met her on the way and asked her why she had turned back. Miyánalladeví said, I will neither eat nor go to Somanátha until you order the remission of the pilgrim tax. Siddharája called the Bholáda treasurer and found that the levy yielded 72 lákhs a year. [573] In spite of the serious sacrifice Siddharája broke the board authorizing the levy of the tax and pouring water from his hand into his mother's declared that the merit of the remission was hers. The queen went to Somanátha and worshipped the god with gold presenting an elephant and other gifts and handing over her own weight in money.

According to the Prabandhachintámani while Miyánalladeví and Siddharája were on pilgrimage Yasovarman king of Málwa continually harassed the Gurjjara-Mandala. Sántu who was in charge of the kingdom asked Yasovarman on what consideration he would retire. Yasovarman said he would retire if Siddharája gave up to him the merit of the pilgrimage to Somesvara. Sántu washed his feet and taking water in his hand surrendered to Yasovarman the merit of Siddharája, on which, according to his promise, Yasovarman retired. On his return Siddharája asked Sántu what he meant by transferring his sovereign's merit to a rival. Sántu said, 'If you think my giving Yasovarman your merit has any importance I restore it to you.' [574] This curious story seems to be a Jain fiction probably invented with the object of casting ridicule on the Bráhmanical doctrine of merit. Yasovarman was not a cotemporary of Siddharája. The Málwa king referred to is probably Yasovarman's predecessor Naravarman, of whom an inscription dated A.D. 1134 (S. 1190) is recorded. [575]

Under the name Sadharo Jesingh, Siddharája's memory is fresh in Gujarát as its most powerful, most religious, and most charitable ruler. Almost every old work of architectural or antiquarian interest in Gujarát is ascribed to Siddharája. In inscriptions he is styled The great king of kings, The great lord, The great Bhattáraka, The lord of Avantí, The hero of the three worlds, The conqueror of Barbaraka, The universal ruler Siddha, The illustrious Jayasimhadeva. Of these the commonest attributes are Siddhachakravartín the Emperor of Magic and Siddharája the Lord of Magic, titles which seem to claim for the king divine or supernatural powers. [576] In connection with his assumption of these titles the Kumárapálaprabandha, the Dvyásraya, and the Prabandhachintámani tell curious tales. According to the Dvyásraya, the king wandering by night had subdued the Bhútas, Sákinís, and other spirits. He had also learnt many mantras or charms. From what he saw at night he would call people in the day time and say 'You have such a cause of uneasiness' or 'You have such a comfort.' Seeing that he knew their secrets the people thought that the king knew the hearts of all men and must be the avatára of some god. A second story tells how Siddharája helped a Nága prince and princess whom he met by night on the Sarasvatí. [577] According to a third story told in the Kumárapálaprabandha two Yoginís or nymphs came from the Himálayas and asked the king by what mystic powers he justified the use of the title Siddharája. The king agreed to perform some wonders in open court in the presence of the nymphs. With the help of a former minister, Haripála, the king had a dagger prepared whose blade was of sugar and its handle of iron set with jewels. When the king appeared in court to perform the promised wonders a deputation of ambassadors from king Permádi of Kalyánakataka [578] was announced. The deputation entered and presented the prepared dagger as a gift from their lord. The king kept the prepared dagger and in its stead sent all round the court a real dagger which was greatly admired. After the real dagger had been seen and returned the king said: I will use this dagger to show my mystic powers, and in its place taking the false dagger ate its sugar blade. When the blade was eaten the minister stopped the king and said Let the Yoginís eat the handle. The king agreed and as the Yoginís failed to eat the handle which was iron the superiority of the king's magic was proved.

A fourth story in the Dvyásraya tells that when the king was planning an invasion of Málwa a Yoginí came from Ujjain to Patan and said 'O Rája, if you desire great fame, come to Ujjain and humbly entreat Kálika and other Yoginís and make friends with Yasovarman the Rája of Ujjain.' The king contemptuously dismissed her, saying, 'If you do not fly hence like a female crow, I will cut off your nose and ears with this sword.'

So also the king's acts of prowess and courage were believed to be due to magical aid. According to the common belief Siddharája did his great acts of heroism by the help of a demon named Bábaro, whom he is said to have subdued by riding on a corpse in a burying ground. The story in the Prabandhachintámani is similar to that told of the father of Harshavardhana who subdued a demon with the help of a Yogí. It is notable that the story had passed into its present form within a hundred years of Siddharája's death. Somesvara in his Kírtikaumudí says, 'This moon of kings fettered the prince of goblins Barbaraka in a burial-place, and became known among the crowd of kings as Siddharája.' Older records show that the origin of the story, at least of the demon's name, is historical being traceable to one of Siddharája's copperplate attributes Barbaraka-jishnu that is conqueror of Barbaraka. The Dvyásrayakosha represents this Barbara as a leader of Rákshasas or Mlechhas, who troubled the Bráhmans at Srísthala-Siddhapura. Jayasimha conquered him and spared his life at the instance of his wife Pingaliká. Afterwards Barbara gave valuable presents to Jayasimha and 'served him as other Rájputs.' [579] Barbaraka seems to be the name of a tribe of non-Áryans whose modern representatives are the Bábariás settled in South Káthiáváda in the province still known as Bábariáváda.

A Dohad inscription of the time of Siddharája dated A.D. 1140 (S. 1196) says of his frontier wars: 'He threw into prison the lords of Suráshtra and Málwa; he destroyed Sindhurája and other kings; he made the kings of the north bear his commands.' The Suráshtra king referred to is probably a ruler of the Áhír or Chúdásamá tribe whose head-quarters were at Junágadh. According to the Prabandhachintámani Siddharája went in person to subdue Noghan or Navaghani the Áhír ruler of Suráshtra; he came to Vardhamánapura that is Vadhván and from Vadhván attacked and slew Noghan. Jinaprabhasúri the author of the Tírthakalpa says of Girnár that Jayasimha killed the king named Khengár and made one Sajjana his viceroy in Suráshtra. So many traditions remain regarding wars with Khengár that it seems probable that Siddharája led separate expeditions against more than one king of that name. According to tradition the origin of the war with Khengár was a woman named Ránakadeví whom Khengára had married. Ránakadeví was the daughter of a potter of Majevádi village about nine miles north of Junágadh, so famous for her beauty that Siddharája determined to marry her. Meanwhile she had accepted an offer from Khengár whose subject she was and had married him. Siddharája enraged at her marriage advanced against Khengár, took him prisoner, and annexed Sorath. That Khengár's kingdom was annexed and Sajjana, mentioned by Jinaprabhasúri, was appointed Viceroy is proved by a Girnár inscription dated A.D. 1120 (S. 1176).

An era called the Simha Samvatsara connected with the name of Jayasimha and beginning with A.D. 1113-1114 (S. 1169-70), occurs in several inscriptions found about Prabhása and South Káthiáváda. This era was probably started in that year in honour of this conquest of Khengár and Sorath. [580] The earliest known mention of the Simha Samvatsara era occurs in a step-well at Mángrol called the Sodhali Váv. The inscription is of the time of Kumárapála and mentions Sahajiga the father of Múlaka the grantor as a member of the bodyguard of the Chálukyas. The inscription states that Sahajiga had several sons able to protect Sauráshtra, one of whom was Somarája who built the temple of Sahajigesvara, in the enclosure of the Somanátha temple at Prabhása; another was Múlaka the náyaka of Suráshtra, who is recorded to have made grants for the worship of the god by establishing cesses in Mangalapura or Mángrol and other places. The inscription is dated A.D. 1146 (Monday the 13th of the dark half of Asvín Vikrama S. 1202 and Simha S. 32). This inscription supports the view that the Simha era was established by Jayasimha, since if the era belonged to some other local chief, no Chálukya viceroy would adopt it. The Simha era appears to have been kept up in Gujarát so long as Anahilapura rule lasted. The well known Verával inscription of the time of Arjunadeva is dated Hijri 662, Vikrama S. 1320, Valabhi S. 945, Simha S. 151, Sunday the 13th of Áshádha Vadi. This inscription shows that the Simha era was in use for a century and a half during the sovereignty of Anahilaváda in Suráshtra.

Regarding Sajjana Siddharája's first viceroy in Suráshtra, the Prabandhachintámani says that finding him worthy the king appointed Sajjana the dandádhipati of Suráshtradesa. Without consulting his master Sajjana spent three years' revenue in building a stone temple of Neminátha on Girnár instead of a wooden temple which he removed. In the fourth year the king sent four officers to bring Sajjana to Anahilaváda. The king called on Sajjana to pay the revenues of the past three years. In reply Sajjana asked whether the king would prefer the revenue in cash or the merit which had accrued from spending the revenue in building the temple. Preferring the merit the king sanctioned the spending of the revenues on the Tírtha and Sajjana was reappointed governor of Sorath. [581] This stone temple of Sajjana would seem to be the present temple of Neminátha, though many alterations have been made in consequence of Muhammadan sacrilege and a modern enclosure has been added. The inscription of Sajjana which is dated A.D. 1120 (S. 1176) is on the inside to the right in passing to the small south gate. It contains little but the mention of the Sádhu who was Sajjana's constant adviser. On his return from a second pilgrimage to Somanátha Siddharája who was encamped near Raivataka that is Girnár expressed a wish to see Sajjana's temple. But the Bráhmans envious of the Jains persuaded the king that as Girnár was shaped like a ling it would be sacrilege to climb it. Siddharája respected this objection and worshipped at the foot of the mountain. From Girnár he went to Satruñjaya. Here too Bráhmans with drawn swords tried to prevent the king ascending the hill. Siddharája went in disguise at night, worshipped the Jain god Ádísvara with Ganges water, and granted the god twelve neighbouring villages. On the hill he saw so luxuriant a growth of the sállaki a plant dear to elephants, that he proposed to make the hill a breeding place for elephants a second Vindhya. He was reminded what damage wild elephants would cause to the holy place and for this reason abandoned his plan.

Siddharája's second and greater war was with Málwa. The cotemporary kings of Málwa were the Paramára ruler Naravarman who flourished from A.D. 1104 to 1133 (S. 1160-1189) and his son and successor Yasovarman who ruled up to A.D. 1143 (S. 1199) the year of Siddharája's death As the names of both these kings occur in different accounts of this war, and, as the war is said to have lasted twelve years, it seems that fighting began in the time of Naravarman and that Siddharája's final victory was gained in the time of Yasovarman in Siddharája's old age about A.D. 1134 (S. 1190). This view is supported by the local story that his expedition against Yasovarman was undertaken while Siddharája was building the Sahasralinga lake and other religious works. It is not known how the war arose but the statement of the Prabandhachintámani that Siddharája vowed to make a scabbard of Yasovarman's skin seems to show that Siddharája received grave provocation. Siddharája is said to have left the building of the Sahasralinga lake to the masons and architects and himself to have started for Málwa. The war dragged on and there seemed little hope of victory when news reached Siddharája that the three south gates of Dhárá could be forced. With the help of an elephant an entrance was effected. Yasovarman was captured and bound with six ropes, and, with his captured enemy as his banner of victory, Siddharája returned to Anahilapura. He remembered his vow, but being prevented from carrying it out, he took a little of Yasovarman's skin and adding other skin to it made a scabbard. The captured king was thenceforward kept in a cage. It was this complete conquest and annexation of Málwa that made Siddharája assume the style of Avantínátha 'Lord of Avantí,' which is mentioned as his biruda or title in most of the Chaulukya copperplates. [582] Málwa henceforward remained subject to Anahilaváda. On the return from Málwa an army of Bhíls who tried to block the way were attacked by the minister Sántu and put to flight.

Siddharája's next recorded war is with king Madanavarman the Chandela king of Mahobaka the modern Mahobá in Bundelkhand. Madanavarman, of whom General Cunningham has found numerous inscriptions dating from A.D. 1130 to 1164 (S. 1186-1220), [583] was one of the most famous kings of the Chandela dynasty. An inscription of one of his successors in Kálanjar fort records that Madanavarman 'in an instant defeated the king of Gurjjara, as Krishna in former times defeated Kamsa, [584] a statement which agrees with the Gujarát accounts of the war between him and Jayasimha. In this conflict the Gujarát accounts do not seem to show that Siddharája gained any great victory; he seems to have been contented with a money present. The Kírtikaumudí states that the king of Mahobaka honoured Siddharája as his guest and paid a fine and tribute by way of hospitality. The account in the Kumárapálacharita suggests that Siddharája was compelled to come to terms and make peace. According to the Kírtikaumudí, and this seems likely, Siddharája went from Dhárá to Kálanjara. The account in the Prabandhachintámani is very confused. According to the Kumárapálacharita, on Siddharája's way back from Dhárá at his camp near Patan a bard came to the court and said to the king that his court was as wonderful as the court of Madanavarman. The bard said that Madanavarman was the king of the city of Mahobaka and most clever, wise, liberal, and pleasure-loving. The king sent a courtier to test the truth of the bard's statement. The courtier returned after six months declaring that the bard's account was in no way exaggerated. Hearing this Siddharája at once started against Mahobaka and encamping within sixteen miles of the city sent his minister to summon Madanavarman to surrender. Madanavarman who was enjoying himself took little notice of the minister. This king, he said, is the same who had to fight twelve years with Dhárá; if, as is probable, since he is a kabádi or wild king, he wants money, pay him what he wants. The money was paid. But Siddharája was so struck with Madanavarman's indifference that he would not leave until he had seen him. Madanavarman agreed to receive him. Siddharája went with a large bodyguard to the royal garden which contained a palace and enclosed pleasure-house and was guarded by troops. Only four of Siddharája's guards were allowed to enter. With these four men Siddharája went in, was shown the palace garden and pleasure-houses by Madanavarman, was treated with great hospitality, and on his return to Patan was given a guard of 120 men.

The Dvyásraya says that after his conquest of Ujjain Siddharája seized and imprisoned the king of a neighbouring country named Sim. We have no other information on this point.

The Dohad inscription dated A.D. 1140 mentions the destruction of Sindhurája that is the king of Sindh and other kings. The Kírtikaumudí also mentions the binding of the lord of Sindhu. Nothing is known regarding the Sindh war. The Kírtikaumudí mentions that after a war with Arnorája king of Sámbhar Siddharája gave his daughter to Arnorája. This seems to be a mistake as the war and alliance with Arnorája belong to Kumárapála's reign.

Siddharája, who like his ancestors was a Saiva, showed his zeal for the faith by constructing the two grandest works in Gujarát the Rudramahálaya at Sidhpur and the Sahasralinga lake at Patan. The Jain chroniclers always try to show that Siddharája was favourably inclined to Jainism. But several of his acts go against this claim and some even show a dislike of the Jains. It is true that the Jain sage Hemáchárya lived with the king, but the king honoured him as a scholar rather than as a Jain. On the occasion of the pilgrimage to Somanátha the king offered Hemáchárya a palanquin, and, as he would not accept the offer but kept on walking, the king blamed him calling him a learned fool with no worldly wisdom. Again on one occasion while returning from Málwa Siddharája encamped at a place called Srínagara, where the people had decorated their temples with banners in honour of the king. Finding a banner floating over a Jain temple the king asked in anger who had placed it there, as he had forbidden the use of banners on Jain shrines and temples in Gujarát. On being told that it was a very old shrine dating from the time of Bharata, the king ordered that at the end of a year the banner might be replaced. This shows the reverse of a leaning to Jainism. Similarly, according to the Prabandhachintámani, Hemáchárya never dared to speak to the king in favour of Jainism but used to say that all religions were good. This statement is supported by the fact that the opening verses of all works written by Hemáchárya in the time of Siddharája contain no special praise of Jain deities.

So great is Siddharája's fame as a builder that almost every old work in Gujarát is ascribed to him. Tradition gives him the credit of the Dabhoi fort which is of the time of the Vághelá king Víradhavala, A.D. 1220-1260. The Prabandhachintámani gives this old verse regarding Siddharája's public works: 'No one makes a great temple (Rudramahálaya), a great pilgrimage (to Somanátha), a great Ásthána (darbár hall), or a great lake (Sahasralinga) such as Siddharája made.' [585] Of these the Rudramahálaya, though very little is left, from its size and the beauty of its carving, must have been a magnificent work the grandest specimen of the architecture of the Solanki period. The remains of the Sahasralinga lake at Anahilapura show that it must have been a work of surprising size and richness well deserving its title of mahásarah or great lake. Numerous other public works are ascribed to Siddharája. [586]

At this period it seems that the kings of Gujarát Sámbhar and other districts, seeing the great reputation which his literary tastes had gained for Bhoja of Dhárá used all to keep Pandits. Certain carvings on the pillars of a mosque at the south-west of the modern town of Dhárá show that the building almost as it stands was the Sanskrit school founded by Bhoja. The carvings in question are beautifully cut Sanskrit grammar tables. Other inscriptions in praise of Naravarman show that Bhoja's successors continued to maintain the institution. In the floor of the mosque are many large shining slabs of black marble, the largest as much as seven feet long, all of them covered with inscriptions so badly mutilated that nothing can be made out of them except that they were Sanskrit and Prakrit verses in honour of some prince. On a rough estimate the slabs contain as many as 4000 verses. [587] According to the old saying any one who drank of the Sarasvatí well in Dhárá became a scholar. Sarasvatí's well still exists near the mosque. Its water is good and it is still known as Akkal-kui or the Well of Talent. As in Dhárá so in Ajmir the Arháí-dinká Jhopdá mosque is an old Sanskrit school, recent excavations having brought to light slabs with entire dramas carved on them. So also the Gujarát kings had their Pandits and their halls of learning. Srípála, Siddharája's poet-laureate, wrote a poetical eulogium or prasasti on the Sahasralinga lake. According to the Prabandhachintámani Siddharája gathered numerous Pandits to examine the eulogium. As has already been noticed Siddharája's constant companion was the great scholar and Jain áchárya Hemachandra also called Hemáchárya, who, under the king's patronage, wrote a treatise on grammar called Siddhahema, and also the well-known Dvyásrayakosha which was intended to teach both grammar and the history of the Solankis. Hemachandra came into even greater prominence in the time of Kumárapála, when he wrote several further works and became closely connected with the state religion. Several stories remain of Siddharája assembling poets, and holding literary and poetic discussions.

Record is preserved of a sabhá or assembly called by the king to hear discussions between a Svetámbara Jaina áchárya named Bhattáraka Devasúri and a Digambara Jaina áchárya named Kumudachandra who had come from the Karnátak. Devasúri who was living and preaching in the Jain temple of Arishtanemi at Karnávatí, [588] that is the modern Ahmadábád, was there visited by Kumudachandra. Devasúri treated his visitor with little respect telling him to go to Patan and he would follow and hold a religious discussion or váda. Kumudachandra being a Digambara or skyclad Jaina went naked to Patan and Siddharája honoured him because he came from his mother's country. Siddharája asked Hemachandra to hold a discussion with Kumudachandra and Hemachandra recommended that Devasúri should be invited as a worthy disputant. At a discussion held before a meeting called by the king Kumudachandra was vanquished, probably because the first principle of his Digambara faith that no woman can attain nirvána, was insulting to the queen-mother, and the second that no clothes-wearing Jain can gain mukti or absorption, was an insult to the Jain ministers. The assembly, like Bráhmanical sabhás at the present day, appears to have declined into noise and Siddharája had to interfere and keep order. Devasúri was complimented by the king and taken by one Áhada with great honour to his newly built Jaina temple. [589]

[Kumárapála, A.D. 1143-1174.] In spite of prayers to Somanátha, of incantations, and of gifts to Bráhmans, Siddharája Jayasimha had no son. The throne passed into the line of Tribhuvanapála the great-grandson of Bhímadeva I. (A.D. 1074-62) who was ruling as a feudatory of Siddharája at his ancestral appanage of Dahithalí. Tribhuvanapála's pedigree is Bhímadeva I.; his son Kshemarája by Bakuládeví a concubine; his son Haripála; his son Tribhuvanapála. By his queen Kásmíradeví Tribhuvanapála had three sons Mahípála, Kírttipála, and Kumárapála, and two daughters Premaladeví and Devaladeví. Premaladeví was married to one of Siddharája's nobles a cavalry general named Kánhada or Krishnadeva: Devaladeví was married to Arnorája [590] or Anarája king of Sákambhari or Sámbhar, the Ánalladeva of the Hammíramahákávya. Kumárapála himself was married by his father to one Bhupáladeví. According to the Dvyásraya, Tribhuvanapála was on good terms with Siddharája serving him and going with him to war. The Kumárapálacharita also states that Kumárapála used to attend the court of Siddharája. But from the time he came to feel that he would have no son and that the bastard Kumárapála would succeed him Siddharája became embittered against Kumárapála. According to the Jain chronicles Siddharája was told by the god Somanátha, by the sage Hemachandra, by the goddess Ambiká of Kodinár, [591] and by astrologers that he would have no son and that Kumárapála would be his successor. According to the Kumárapálacharita so bitter did his hate grow that Siddharája planned the death of Tribhuvanapála and his family including Kumárapála. Tribhuvanapála was murdered but Kumárapála escaped. Grieved at this proof of the king's hatred Kumárapála consulted his brother-in-law Krishnadeva who advised him to leave his family at Dahithalí and go into exile promising to keep him informed of what went on at Anahilapura. Kumárapála left in the disguise of a jatádhári or recluse and escaped the assassins whom the king had ordered to slay him. After some time Kumárapála returned and in spite of his disguise was recognized by the guards. They informed the king who invited all the ascetics in the city to a dinner. Kumárapála came but noticing that the king recognized him in spite of his disguise, he fled. The king sent a trusted officer with a small force in pursuit. Kumárapála persuaded some husbandmen, the chief of whom was Bhímasimha, to hide him in a heap of thorns. The pursuers failing to find him returned. At night Kumárapála was let out bleeding from the thorns, and promised the husbandmen that the day would come when their help would be rewarded. He then shaved his topknot or jatá and while travelling met with a lady named Devasrí of Udambara village who pitying him took him into her chariot and gave him food. Kumárapála promised to regard her as a sister. He then came to Dahithalí where the royal troops had already arrived. Siddharája sent an army which invested the village leaving Kumárapála without means of escape. He went to a potter named Sajjana or Alinga who hid him in the flues of his brick-kiln throwing hay over him. The troops searched the village, failed to find Kumárapála, and retired. The potter then helped Kumárapála from his hiding place and fed him. A former friend named Bosari joined Kumárapála and they went away together Kumárapála commending his family to the care of Sajjana. On the first day they had no food. Next day Bosari went to beg and they together ate the food given to Bosari in a monastery or math where they slept. In time they came to Cambay where they called upon Hemáchárya and asked him their future. Hemáchárya knew and recognized Kumárapála. Kumárapála asked when fate would bless him. Before Hemáchárya could reply Udayana, one of the king's ministers, came. Hemáchárya said to Udayana, 'This is Kumárapála who shall shortly be your king.' Hemáchárya also gave Kumárapála a writing stating that he would succeed to the throne. Kumárapála acknowledged his obligations to Hemáchárya and promised to follow his advice. Udayana took him to his house and gave him food and clothes. Siddharája came to know of this and sent his soldiers who began to search. Kumárapála returned to Hemáchárya who hid him in a cellar covering its door with manuscripts and palm leaves. The soldiers came but failed to search under the manuscripts and returned. Kumárapála acknowledged his obligations to Hemáchárya and said he owed him two great debts one for telling him the day on which he would come to the throne; the other for saving his life. Kumárapála left Cambay at midnight, the minister Udayana supplying him with provisions. From Cambay he went to Vatapadrapura probably Baroda, where feeling hungry he entered the shop of a Vánia named Katuka and asked for parched gram. The Vánia gave the gram and seeing that Kumárapála had no money accepted his promise of future payment. From Baroda he came to Bhrigukachh or Broach where he saw a soothsayer and asked him his future. The soothsayer, seeing the bird kali-deví perched on the temple flagstaff, said 'You will shortly be king.' Kumárapála shaved his matted hair and went from Broach to Ujjain where he met his family. But as here too the royal troops followed him he fled to Kolhápura where he came across a Yogí who foretold his succession to a throne and gave him two spells or mantras. From Kolhápura Kumárapála went to Káñchí or Conjeveram and from there to the city of Kálambapattana. [592] The king of Kálambapattana Pratápasimha received him like an elder brother and brought him into his city, built a temple of Sivananda Kumárapálesvara in his honour, and even issued a coin called a Kumárapála. From Kálambapattana Kumárapála went to Chitrakúta or Chitor and from there to Ujjain whence he took his family to Siddhapura going on alone to Anahilapura to see his brother-in-law Krishnadeva. According to the Vichárasreni Siddharája died soon after in A.D. 1143 on the 3rd of Kárttika Suddha Samvat 1199.

In the dissensions that followed the king's death Kumárapála's interests were well served by his brother-in-law Krishnadeva. Eventually the names of three candidates, Kumárapála and two others, were laid before the state nobles sitting in council to determine who should be king. Of the three candidates the two others were found wanting, and Kumárapála was chosen and installed according to the Vichárasreni on the 4th of Márgasírsha Suddha and according to the Kumárapálaprabandha on the 4th of Márgasírsha Vadhya. At the time of his succession, according to the Prabandhachintámani and the Kumárapálaprabandha, Kumárapála was about fifty years of age.

On his accession Kumárapála installed his wife Bhupáladeví his anointed queen or pattaráni; appointed Udayana who had befriended him at Cambay minister; Báhada or Vágbhata son of Udayana [593] chief councillor or mahámátya; and Alinga second councillor or mahápradhána. Áhada or Árabhatta, apparently another son of Udayana, did not acknowledge Kumárapála and went over to Arnorája Ánáka or Ano king of Sapádalaksha or the Sámbhar territory who is probably the same as the Ánalladeva of the Hammíramahákávya. [594]

The potter Sajjana was rewarded with a grant of seven hundred villages near Chitrakúta or Chitoda fort in Rájputána, and the author of the Prabandhachintámani notices that in his time the descendants of the potter ashamed of their origin called themselves descendants of Sagara. Bhímasimha who hid Kumárapála in the thorns was appointed head of the bodyguard; Devasrí made the sister's mark on the royal forehead at the time of Kumárapála's installation and was granted the village of Devayo; [595] and Katuka the Vániá of Baroda, who had given Kumárapála parched gram was granted the village of Vatapadra or Baroda. Bosari Kumárapála's chief companion was given Látamandala, which seems to mean that he was appointed viceroy of Láta or South Gujarát.

Kanhada or Krishnadeva Kumárapála's brother-in-law and adviser overvaluing his great services became arrogant and disobedient insulting the king in open court. As remonstrance was of no avail the king had Krishnadeva waylaid and beaten by a band of athletes and taken almost dying to his wife the king's sister. From this time all the state officers were careful to show ready obedience.

The old ministry saw that under so capable and well served a ruler their power was gone. They accordingly planned to slay the king and place their own nominee on the throne. The king heard of the plot: secured the assassins: and employed them in murdering the conspirators. According to the Prabandhachintámani, Áhada or Árabhatta who had gone over to the Sámbhar king and was in charge of the Sámbhar infantry, bribed the local nobles as a preliminary to a war which he had planned against Kumárapála. He so far succeeded as to bring Ána or Ánáka the Sámbhar king with the whole of his army to the borders of Gujarát to fight Kumárapála. Kumárapála went to meet Ánáka. But, in consequence of intrigues, in the battle that followed the Gujarát army did not obey orders. Kumárapála advanced in front on an elephant, and Báhada trying to climb on Kumárapála's elephant was thrown to the ground and slain. Ánáka was also pierced with arrows and the Sámbhar army was defeated and plundered of its horses. [596]

The Dvyásraya, probably by the aid of the author's imagination, gives a fuller account of this war. One fact of importance recorded in the Dvyásraya is that Ánáka though defeated was not slain, and, to bring hostilities to an end, gave his daughter Jalhaná to Kumárapála in marriage. [597] The Kumárapálacharita calls the Sámbhar king Arnorája and says that it was Kumárapála who invaded the Sámbhar territory. According to this account Kumárapála went to Chandrávatí near Ábu and taking its Paramára king Vikramasimha with him marched to Sákambhari or Sámbhar and fought Arnorája who was defeated but not killed. Kumárapála threatened to cut out Arnorája's tongue but let him go on condition that his people wore a headdress with a tongue on each side. Arnorája is said to have been confined in a cage for three days and then reinstalled as Kumárapála's feudatory. Vikramasimha of Chandrávatí, who in the battle had sided with Arnorája, was punished by being disgraced before the assembled seventy-two feudatories at Anahilaváda and was sent to prison, his throne being given to his nephew Yasodhavala. After his victory over Arnorája Kumárapála fought, defeated, and, according to the Kírtikaumudí, beheaded Ballála king of Málwa who had invaded Gujarát. The result of this contest seems to have been to reduce Málwa to its former position of dependence on the Anahilaváda kings. More than one inscription of Kumárapála's found in the temple of Udayáditya as far north as Udayapura near Bhilsa shows that he conquered the whole of Málwa, as the inscriptions are recorded by one who calls himself Kumárapála's general or dandanáyaka. [598]

Another of Kumárapála's recorded victories is over Mallikárjuna said to be king of the Konkan who we know from published lists of the North Konkan Siláháras flourished about A.D. 1160. The author of the Prabandhachintámani says this war arose from a bard of king Mallikárjuna speaking of him before king Kumárapála as Rájapitámaha or grandfather of kings. [599] Kumárapála annoyed at so arrogant a title looked around. Ámbadá, [600] one of the sons of Udayana, divining the king's meaning, raised his folded hands to his forehead and expressed his readiness to fight Mallikárjuna. The king sent him with an army which marched to the Konkan without halting. At the crossing of the Kaláviní it was met and defeated by Mallikárjuna. Ámbadá returned in disgrace and shrouding himself, his umbrella and his tents in crape retreated to Anahilaváda. The king finding Ámbada though humiliated ready to make a second venture gave him a larger and better appointed force. With this army Ámbadá again started for the Konkan, crossed the Kaláviní, attacked Mallikárjuna, and in a hand-to-hand fight climbed his elephant and cut off his head. This head cased in gold with other trophies of the war he presented to the king on his triumphant return to Anahilapura. The king was greatly pleased and gave Ámbadá the title of Rájapitámaha. Of this Mallikárjuna two stone inscriptions have been found one at Chiplún dated A.D. 1156 (Saka 1078) the other at Bassein dated A.D. 1160 (Saka 1082). If the story that Mallikárjuna was slain is true the war must have taken place during the two years between A.D. 1160 and 1162 (Saka 1082, 1084) which latter is the earliest known date of Mallikárjuna's successor Aparáditya.

The Kumárapálacharita also records a war between Kumárapála and Samara king of Suráshtra or south Káthiáváda, the Gujarát army being commanded by Kumárapála's minister Udayana. The Prabandhachintámani gives Sausara as the name of the Suráshtra king [601]: possibly he was some Gohilvád Mehr chief. Udayana came with the army to Vadhwán, and letting it advance went to Pálitána. While he was worshipping at Pálitána, a mouse carried away the burning wick of the lamp. Reflecting on the risk of fire in a wooden temple Udayana determined to rebuild the temple of stone. In the fight with Sausara the Gujarát army was defeated and Udayana was mortally wounded. [602] Before Udayana died he told his sons that he had meant to repair the temple of Ádísvara on Satruñjaya and the Sakuniká Vihára at Broach and also to build steps up the west face of Girnár. His sons Báhada and Ámbadá promised to repair the two shrines. Subsequently both shrines were restored, Kumárapála and Hemáchárya and the council of Anahilapura attending at the installation of Suvrittinátha in the Sakuniká Vihára. The Girnár steps were also cut, according to more than one inscription in A.D. 1166 (S. 1222). [603] This war and Udayana's death must have occurred about A.D. 1149 (S. 1205) as the temple of Ádnátha was finished in A.D. 1156-57 (S. 1211). Báhada also established near Satruñjaya a town called Báhadapura and adorned it with a temple called Tribhuvanapálavasati. [604] After the fight with Sausara Kumárapála was threatened with another war by Karna [605] king of Dáhala or Chedi. Spies informed the king of the impending invasion as he was starting on a pilgrimage to Somanátha. Next day he was relieved from anxiety by the news that while sleeping on an elephant at night king Karna's necklace became entangled in the branch of a banyan tree, and the elephant suddenly running away, the king was strangled.

The Prabandhachintámani records an expedition against Sámbhar which was entrusted to Cháhada a younger brother of Báhada. Though Cháhada was known to be extravagant, the king liked him, and after giving him advice placed him in command. On reaching Sámbhar Cháhada invested the fort of Bábránagar but did not molest the people as on that day 700 brides had to be married. [606] Next day the fort was entered, the city was plundered, and the supremacy of Kumárapála was proclaimed. This Bábránagar has not been identified. There appears to be some confusion and the place may not be in Sámbhar but in Bábariáváda in Káthiáváda. Cháhada returned triumphant to Patan. The king expressed himself pleased but blamed Cháhada for his lavish expenditure and conferred on him the title of Rája-gharatta the King-grinder.

Though the Gujarát chronicles give no further details an inscription in the name of Kumárapála in a temple at Udepur near Bhilsa dated A.D. 1166 records that on Monday, Akshaya tritiyá the 3rd of Vaisákh Sud (S. 1222), Thakkara Cháhada granted half the village of Sangaváda in the Rangáriká district or bhukti. Just below this inscription is a second also bearing the name of Kumárapála. The year is lost. But the occasion is said to be an eclipse on Thursday the 15th of Paush Sudi when a gift was made to the god of Udayapura by Yasodhavala the viceroy of Kumárapála. [607]

Similar inscriptions of Kumárapála's time and giving his name occur near the ruined town of Kerádu or Kiráta-Kúpa near Bálmer in Western Rájputána. The inscriptions show that Kumárapála had another Amátya or minister there, and that the kings of the country round Kerádu had been subject to Gujarát since the time of Siddharája Jayasimha. Finally the inscription of Kumárapála found by Colonel Tod in a temple of Brahma on the pinnacle of Chitoda fort [608] shows that his conquests extended as far as Mewáda.

According to the Kumárapálachintámani Kumárapála married one Padmávatí of Padmapura. The chronicler describes the city as to the west of the Indus. Perhaps the lady belonged to Padmapura, a large town in Kashmír. Considering his greatness as a king and conqueror the historical record of Kumárapála is meagre and incomplete. Materials may still come to light which will show his power to have been surprisingly widespread.

Mr. Forbes [609] records the following Bráhmanical tradition of a Mewáda queen of Kumárapála, which has probably been intentionally omitted by the Jain chroniclers.

Kumárapála, says the Bráhman tradition, had wedded a Sisodaní Ráni, a daughter of the house of Mewáda. At the time that the sword went for her the Sisodaní heard that the Rája had made a vow that his wives should receive initiation into the Jain religion at Hemáchárya's convent before entering the palace. The Ráni refused to start for Patan until she was satisfied she would not be called on to visit the Áchárya's convent. Jayadeva Kumárapála's household bard became surety and the queen consented to go to Anahilapura. Several days after her arrival Hemáchárya said to the Rája 'The Sisodaní Ráni has never come to visit me.' Kumárapála told her she must go. The Ráni refused and fell ill, and the bard's wives went to see her. Hearing her story they disguised her as one of themselves and brought her privately home to their house. At night the bard dug a hole in the wall of the city, and taking the Ráni through the hole started with her for Mewáda. When Kumárapála became aware of the Ráni's flight he set off in pursuit with two thousand horse. He came up with the fugitives about fifteen miles from the fort of Idar. The bard said to the Ráni, 'If you can enter Idar you are safe. I have two hundred horse with me. As long as a man of us remains no one shall lay hands on you.' So saying he turned upon his pursuers. But the Ráni's courage failed and she slew herself in the carriage. As the fight went on and the pursuers forced their way to the carriage, the maids cried 'Why struggle more, the Ráni is dead.' Kumárapála and his men returned home. [610]

The Paramára chiefs of Chandrávatí near Ábu were also feudatories of Kumárapála. It has been noted that to punish him for siding with Arnorája of Sámbhar Kumárapála placed Vikrama Simha the Chandrávatí chief in confinement and set Vikrama's nephew Yasodhavala on his throne. That Kumárapála conquered the chiefs of Sámbhar and Málwa is beyond question. Among his names is the proud title Avantí-nátha Lord of Málwa.

The Kumárapálaprabandha gives the following limits of Kumárapála's sway. The Turushkas or Turks on the north; the heavenly Ganges on the east; the Vindhya mountains on the south; the Sindhu river on the west. [611] Though in tradition Kumárapála's name does not stand so high as a builder as the name of Siddharája Jayasimha he carried out several important works. The chief of these was the restoring and rebuilding of the great shrine of Somesvara or Somanátha Patan. According to the Prabandhachintámani when Kumárapála asked Devasúri the teacher of Hemáchárya how best to keep his name remembered Devasúri replied: Build a new temple of Somanátha fit to last an age or yuga, instead of the wooden one which is ruined by the ocean billows. Kumárapála approved and appointed a building committee or pañchakula headed by a Bráhman named Ganda Bháva Brihaspati the state officer at Somanátha. At the instance of Hemáchárya the king on hearing the foundations were laid vowed until the temple was finished he would keep apart from women and would take neither flesh nor wine. In proof of his vow he poured a handful of water over Nílakantha Mahádeva, probably his own royal god. After two years the temple was completed and the flag hoisted. Hemáchárya advised the king not to break his vow until he had visited the new temple and paid his obeisance to the god. The king agreed and went to Somanátha, Hemáchárya preceding him on foot and promising to come to Somanátha after visiting Satruñjaya and Girnár. On reaching Somanátha the king was received by Ganda-Brihaspati his head local officer and by the building committee, and was taken in state through the town. At the steps of the temple the king bowed his head to the ground. Under the directions of Ganda-Brihaspati he worshipped the god, made gifts of elephants and other costly articles including his own weight in coin, and returned to Anahilapura.

It is interesting to know that the present battered sea-shore temple of Somanátha, whose garbhágára or shrine has been turned into a mosque and whose spire has been shattered, is the temple of whose building and consecration the above details are preserved. This is shown by the style of the architecture and sculpture which is in complete agreement with the other buildings of the time of Kumárapála. [612]

Kumárapála's temple seems to have suffered in every subsequent Muhammadan invasion, in Alaf Khan's in A.D. 1300, in Mozaffar's in A.D. 1390, in Mahmúd Begada's about A.D. 1490, and in Muzaffar II.'s about A.D. 1530. Time after time no sooner had the invader passed than the work of repair began afresh. One of the most notable restorations was by Khengár IV. (A.D. 1279-1333) a Chúdásamá king of Junágadh who is mentioned in two Girnár inscriptions as the repairer of Somanátha after its desecration by Alá-ud-dín Khilji. The latest sacrilege, including the turning of the temple into a mosque, was in the time of the Ahmadábád king Muzaffar Sháh II. (A.D. 1511-1535). Since then no attempt has been made to win back the god into his old home.

In the side wall near the door of the little shrine of Bhadrakáli in Patan a broken stone inscription gives interesting details of the temple of Somanátha. Except that the right hand corners of some of the lines are broken, the inscription is clear and well preserved. It is dated A.D. 1169 (Valabhi 850). It records that the temple of the god Somesa was first of gold built by Soma; next it was of silver built by Rávana; afterwards of wood built by Krishna; and last of stone built by Bhímadeva. The next restoration was through Ganda-Brihaspati under Kumárapála. Of Ganda-Brihaspati it gives these details. He was a Kanyákubja or Kanoj Bráhman of the Pásupata school, a teacher of the Málwa kings, and a friend of Siddharája Jayasimha. He repaired several other temples and founded several other religious buildings in Somanátha. He also repaired the temple of Kedáresvara in Kumaon on learning that the Khasa king of that country had allowed it to fall into disrepair. After the time of Kumárapála the descendants of Ganda-Brihaspati remained in religious authority in Somanátha.

Kumárapála made many Jain benefactions. [613] He repaired the temple of Ságala-Vasahiká at Stambha-tírtha or Cambay where Hemáchárya received his initiation or díkshá. In honour of the lady who gave him barley flour and curds he built a temple called the Karambaka-Vihára in Patan. He also built in Patan a temple called the Mouse or Mushaka-Vihára to free himself from the impurity caused by killing a mouse while digging for treasure. At Dhandhuka Hemáchárya's birthplace a temple called the Jholiká-Vihára or cradle temple was built. Besides these Kumárapála is credited with building 1444 temples.

Though Kumárapála was not a learned man, his ministers were men of learning, and he continued the practice of keeping at his court scholars especially Sanskrit poets. Two of his leading Pandits were Rámachandra and Udayachandra both of them Jains. Rámachandra is often mentioned in Gujaráti literature and appears to have been a great scholar. He was the author of a book called the Hundred Accounts or Prabandhasata. After Udayana's death Kumárapála's chief minister was Kapardi a man of learning skilled in Sanskrit poetry. And all through his reign his principal adviser was Hemachandra or Hemáchárya probably the most learned man of his time. Though Hemáchárya lived during the reigns both of Siddharája and of Kumárapála, only under Kumárapála did he enjoy political power as the king's companion and religious adviser. What record remains of the early Solankis is chiefly due to Hemachandra.

The Jain life of Hemáchárya abounds in wonders. Apart from the magic and mystic elements the chief details are: Cháchiga a Modh Vánia of Dhandhuka [614] in the district of Ardháshtama had by his wife Páhiní [615] of the Chámunda gotra, a boy named Chángodeva who was born A.D. 1089 (Kartik fullmoon Samvat 1145). A Jain priest named Devachandra Áchárya (A.D. 1078-1170; S. 1134-1226) came from Patan to Dhandhuka and when in Dhandhuka went to pay his obeisance at the Modh Vasahiká. While Devachandra was seated Chángodeva came playing with other boys and went and sat beside the áchárya. Struck with the boy's audacity and good looks the áchárya went with the council of the village to Cháchiga's house. Cháchiga was absent but his wife being a Jain received the áchárya with respect. When she heard that her son was wanted by the council, without waiting to consult her husband, she handed the boy to the áchárya who carried him off to Karnávatí and kept him there with the sons of the minister Udayana. Cháchiga, disconsolate at the loss of his son, went in quest of him vowing to eat nothing till the boy was found. He came to Karnávatí and in an angry mood called on the áchárya to restore him his son. Udayana was asked to interfere and at last persuaded Cháchiga to let the boy stay with Devachandra.

In A.D. 1097, when Chángodeva was eight years old Cháchiga celebrated his son's consecration or díkshá and gave him the name of Somachandra. As the boy became extremely learned Devachandra changed his name to Hemachandra the Moon of gold. In A.D. 1110 (S. 1166) at the age of 21, his mastery of all the Sástras and Siddhántas was rewarded by the dignity of Súri or sage. Siddharája was struck with his conversation and honoured him as a man of learning. Hemachandra's knowledge, wisdom and tact enabled him to adhere openly to his Jain rules and beliefs though Siddharája's dislike of Jain practices was so great as at times to amount to insult. After one of their quarrels Hemáchárya kept away from the king for two or three days. Then the king seeing his humility and his devotion to his faith repented and apologised. The two went together to Somanátha Patan and there Hemáchárya paid his obeisance to the linga in a way that did not offend his own faith. During Siddharája's reign Hemáchárya wrote his well known grammar with aphorisms or sútras and commentary or vritti called Siddha-Hemachandra, a title compounded of the king's name and his own. As the Bráhmans found fault with the absence of any detailed references to the king in the work Hemachandra added one verse at the end of each chapter in praise of the king. During Siddharája's reign he also wrote two other works, the Haimínámamálá, "String of Names composed by Hema(chandra)" or Abhidhánachintámani and the Anekárthanámamálá, a Collection of words of more than one meaning. He also began the Dvyásrayakosha [616] or Double Dictionary being both a grammar and a history. In spite of his value to Kumárapála, in the beginning of Kumárapála's reign Hemáchárya was not honoured as a spiritual guide and had to remain subordinate to Bráhmans. When Kumárapála asked him what was the most important religious work he could perform Hemáchárya advised the restoring of the temple of Somanátha. Still Hemáchárya so far won the king to his own faith that till the completion of the temple he succeeded in persuading the king to take the vow of ahimsá or non-killing which though common to both faiths is a specially Jain observance. Seeing this mark of his ascendancy over the king, the king's family priest and other Bráhmans began to envy and thwart Hemáchárya. On the completion of the temple, when the king was starting for Somanátha for the installation ceremony, the Bráhmans told him that Hemáchárya did not mean to go with him. Hemáchárya who had heard of the plot had already accepted the invitation. He said being a recluse he must go on foot, and that he also wanted to visit Girnár, and from Girnár would join the king at Somanátha. His object was to avoid travelling in a palanquin with the king or suffering a repetition of Siddharája's insult for not accepting a pálkí. Soon after reaching Somanátha Kumárapála asked after Hemáchárya. The Bráhmans spread a story that he had been drowned, but Hemáchárya was careful to appear in the temple as the king reached it. The king saw him, called him, and took him with him to the temple. Some Bráhmans told the king that the Jain priest would not pay any obeisance to Siva, but Hemáchárya saluted the god in the following verse in which was nothing contrary to strict Jainism: 'Salutation to him, whether he be Brahma, Vishnu, Hara, or Jina, from whom have fled desires which produce the sprouts of the seed of worldliness.' [617] After this joint visit to Somanátha Hemachandra gained still more ascendancy over the king, who appreciated his calmness of mind and his forbearance. The Bráhmans tried to prevent the growth of his influence, but in the end Hemachandra overcame them. He induced the king to place in the sight of his Bráhmanical family priests an image of Sántinátha Tírthankara among his family gods. He afterwards persuaded Kumárapála publicly to adopt the Jain faith by going to the hermitage of Hemachandra and giving numerous presents to Jain ascetics. Finally under his influence Kumárapála put away all Bráhmanical images from his family place of worship. Having gone such lengths Kumárapála began to punish the Bráhmans who insulted Hemachandra. A Bráhman named Vámarási, a Pandit at the royal court, who composed a verse insulting Hemachandra, lost his annuity and was reduced to beggary, but on apologising to Hemachandra the annuity was restored. Another Bráhmanical officer named Bháva Brihaspati, who was stationed at Somanátha, was re-called for insulting Hemachandra. But he too on apologising to Hemachandra was restored to Somanátha. Under Hemachandra's influence Kumárapála gave up the use of flesh and wine, ceased to take pleasure in the chase, and by beat of drum forbade throughout his kingdom the taking of animal life. He withdrew their licenses from hunters, fowlers and fishermen, and forced them to adopt other callings. To what lengths this dread of life-taking was carried appears from an order that only filtered water was to be given to all animals employed in the royal army. Among the stories told of the king's zeal for life-saving is one of a Bania of Sámbhar who having been caught killing a louse was brought in chains to Anahilaváda, and had his property confiscated and devoted to the building at Anahilaváda of a Louse Temple or Yúká-Vihára. According to another story a man of Nador in Márwár was put to death by Kelhana the chief of Nador to appease Kumárapála's wrath at hearing that the man's wife had offered flesh to a field-god or kshetrapála. Hemachandra also induced the king to forego the claim of the state to the property of those who died without a son.

During Kumárapála's reign Hemachandra wrote many well known Sanskrit and Prakrit works on literature and religion. Among these are the Adhyátmopanishad or Yogasástra a work of 12,000 verses in twelve chapters called Prakásas, the Trisáshthisálákápurushacharitra or lives of sixty-three Jain saints of the Utsarpiní and Avasarpiní ages; the Parisishtaparvan, a work of 3500 verses being the life of Jain Sthaviras who flourished after Mahávíra; the Prákrita Sabdánusásana or Prákrit grammar; the Dvyásraya [618] a Prakrit poem written with the double object of teaching grammar and of giving the history of Kumárapála; the Chhandonusásana a work of about 6000 verses on prosody; the Lingánusásana a work on genders; the Desínámamálá in Prakrit with a commentary a work on local and provincial words; and the Alankárachúdámani a work on rhetoric. Hemachandra died in A.D. 1172 (S. 1229) at the age of 84. The king greatly mourned his loss and marked his brow with Hemachandra's ashes. Such crowds came to share in the ashes of the pyre that the ground was hollowed into a pit known as the Haima-Khadda or Hema's Pit.

Kumárapála lived to a great age. According to the author of the Prabandhachintámani he was fifty when he succeeded to the throne, and after ruling about thirty-one years died in A.D. 1174 (S. 1230). He is said to have died of lúta a form of leprosy. Another story given by the Kumárapálaprabandha is that Kumárapála was imprisoned by his nephew and successor Ajayapála. The Kumárapálaprabandha gives the exact length of Kumárapála's reign at 30 years 8 months and 27 days. If the beginning of Kumárapála's reign is placed at the 4th Magsar Sud Samvat 1299, the date of the close, taking the year to begin in Kártika, would be Bhádrapada Suddha Samvat 1229. If with Gujarát almanacs the year is taken to begin in Áshádha, the date of the close of the reign would be Bhádrapada of Samvat 1230. It is doubtful whether either Samvat 1229 or 1230 is the correct year, as an inscription dated Samvat 1229 Vaishákha Suddha 3rd at Udayapura near Bhilsá describes Ajayapála Kumárapála's successor as reigning at Anahilapura. This would place Kumárapála's death before the month of Vaishákha 1229 that is in A.D. 1173. [619]

[Ajayapála, A.D. 1174-1177.] As Kumárapála had no son he was succeeded by Ajayapála the son of his brother Mahípála. [620] According to the Kumárapálaprabandha Kumárapála desired to give the throne to his daughter's son Pratápamalla, but Ajayapála raised a revolt and got rid of Kumárapála by poison. The Jain chroniclers say nothing of the reign of Ajayapála because he was not a follower of their religion. The author of the Sukritasankírtana notices a small silver canopy or pavilion shown in Ajayapála's court as a feudatory's gift from the king of Sapádalaksha [621] or Sewálik. The author of the Kírtikaumudí dismisses Ajayapála with the mere mention of his name, and does not even state his relationship with Kumárapála. According to the Prabandhachintámani Ajayapála destroyed the Jain temples built by his uncle. He showed no favour to Ámbadá and Kumárapála's other Jain ministers. Ajayapála seems to have been of a cruel and overbearing temper. He appointed as his minister Kapardi because he was of the Bráhmanical faith. [622] But considering his manners arrogant he ordered him to be thrown into a caldron of boiling oil. On another occasion he ordered the Jain scholar Rámachandra to sit on a red-hot sheet of copper. One of his nobles Ámra-bhata or Ámbadá refused to submit to the king, saying that he would pay obeisance only to Vítarája or Tírthankara as god, to Hemachandra as guide, and to Kumárapála as king. Ajayapála ordered the matter to be settled by a fight. Ámbadá brought some of his followers to the drum-house near the gate, and in the fight that followed Ámbadá was killed. In A.D. 1177 (S. 1233), after a short reign of three years, Ajayapála was slain by a doorkeeper named Vijjaladeva who plunged a dagger into the king's heart. [623]

[Múlarája II., A.D. 1177-1179.] Ajayapála was succeeded by his son Múlarája II. also called Bála Múlarája as he was only a boy when installed. His mother was Náikídeví the daughter of Paramardi, apparently the Kádamba king Permádi or Siva Chitta who reigned from A.D. 1147 to 1175 (S. 1203-1231). [624] The authors of the Kírtikaumudí [625] and the Sukritasankírtana say that even in childhood Múlarája II. dispersed the Turushka or Muhammadan army. [626] The Prabandhachintámani states that the king's mother fought at the Gádaráraghatta and that her victory was due to a sudden fall of rain. Múlarája II. is said to have died in A.D. 1179 (S. 1235) after a reign of two years.

[Bhíma II. A.D. 1179-1242.] Múlarája II. was succeeded by Bhíma II. The relationship of the two is not clearly established. Mr. Forbes makes Bhíma the younger brother of Ajayapála. But it appears from the Kírtikaumudí and the Sukritasankírtana that Bhíma was the younger brother of Múlarája. The Sukritasankírtana after concluding the account of Múlarája, [627] calls Bhíma 'asya bandhu' 'his brother,' and the Kírtikaumudí, after mentioning the death of Múlarája, says that Bhíma his younger brother 'anujanmásya' became king. [628] Múlarája we know came to the throne as a child. Of Bhíma also the Kírtikaumudí says that he came to the throne while still in his childhood, and this agrees with the statements that he was the younger brother of Múlarája. Bhíma probably came to the throne A.D. 1178 (S. 1234). There is no doubt he was reigning in A.D. 1179 (S. 1235), as an inscription in the deserted village of Kerálu near Bálmer of Anahilaváda dated A.D. 1179 (S. 1235) states that it was written 'in the triumphant reign of the illustrious Bhímadeva.' [629] A further proof of his reigning in A.D. 1179 (S. 1235) and of his being a minor at that time is given in the following passage from the Tabakát-i-Násirí: In A.D. 1178 (Hijri 574) the Ráí of Nahrwálá Bhímdeo, was a minor, but he had a large army and many elephants. In the day of battle the Muhammadans were defeated and the Sultán was compelled to retreat. [630] Merutunga says that Bhíma reigned from A.D. 1179 (S. 1235) for sixty-three years that is up to A.D. 1242 (S. 1298), and this is borne out by a copperplate of Bhíma which bears date A.D. 1240 (S. 1296 [631] Márgha Vadi 14th Sunday [632]).

Bhíma was nicknamed Bholo the Simpleton. The chroniclers of this period mention only the Vághelás and almost pass over Bhíma. The author of the Kírtikaumudí says 'the kingdom of the young ruler was gradually divided among powerful ministers and provincial chiefs'; and according to the Sukritasankírtana 'Bhíma felt great anxiety on account of the chiefs who had forcibly eaten away portions of the kingdom.' It appears that during the minority, when the central authority was weak, the kingdom was divided among nobles and feudatories, and that Bhíma proved too weak a ruler to restore the kingly power. Manuscripts and copperplates show that Bhímadeva was ruling at Anahilaváda in S. 1247, 1251, 1261, 1263, and 1264, [633] and copperplates dated S. 1283, 1288, 1295, and 1296 have also been found. Though Bhíma in name enjoyed a long unbroken reign the verses quoted above show that power rested not with the king but with the nobles. It appears from an inscription that in A.D. 1224 (S. 1280) a Chálukya noble named Jayantasimha was supreme at Anahilaváda though he mentions Bhíma and his predecessors with honour and respect. [634]

It was probably by aiding Bhíma against Jayantasimha that the Vághelás rose to power. According to the chroniclers the Vághelás succeeded in the natural course of things. According to the Sukritasankírtana Kumárapála appeared to his grandson Bhíma and directed him to appoint as his heir-apparent Víradhavala son of Lavanaprasáda and grandson of Arnorája the son of Dhavala king of Bhimapalli. Next day in court, in the presence of his nobles, when Lavanaprasáda and Víradhavala entered the king said to Lavanaprasáda: Your father Arnorája seated me on the throne: you should therefore uphold my power: in return I will name your son Víradhavala my heir-apparent. [635] The author of the Kírtikaumudí notes that Arnorája son of Dhavala, opposing the revolution against Bhíma, cleared the kingdom of enemies, but at the cost of his own life. The author then describes Lavanaprasáda and Víradhavala as kings. But as he gives no account of their rise to supremacy, it seems probable that they usurped the actual power from Bhíma though till A.D. 1242 (S. 1295) Bhíma continued to be nominal sovereign.

Bhíma's queen was Líládeví the daughter of a Chohán chief named Samarasimha. [636]

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III. THE VÁGHELÁS

(A.D. 1219-1304).

[Arnorája, A.D. 1170-1200.] While Bhímadeva II. (A.D. 1179-1242) struggled to maintain his authority in the north, the country between the Sábarmatí and the Narbadá in the south as well as the districts of Dholká and Dhandhuká in the south-west passed to the Vághelás a branch of the Solankis sprung from Ánáka or Arnorája, the son of the sister of Kumárapála's (A.D. 1143-1173) mother. In return for services to Kumárapála, [637] Ánáka, with the rank of a noble or Sámanta, had received the village of Vyághrapalli or Vághelá, the Tiger's Lair, about ten miles south-west of Anahilaváda. It is from this village that the dynasty takes its name of Vághela.

[Lavanaprasáda, A.D. 1200-1233.] Ánáka's son Lavanaprasáda, who is mentioned as a minister of Bhímadeva II. (A.D. 1179-1242) [638] held Vághelá and probably Dhavalagadha or Dholká about thirty miles to the south-west. The Kírtikaumudí or Moonlight of Glory, the chief cotemporary chronicle, [639] describes Lavanaprasáda as a brave warrior, the slayer of the chief of Nadulá the modern Nándol in Márwár. "In his well-ordered realm, except himself the robber of the glory of hostile kings, robbers were unknown. The ruler of Málava invading the kingdom turned back before the strength of Lavanaprasáda. The southern king also when opposed by him gave up the idea of war." The ruler of Málava or Málwa referred to was Sohada or Subhatavarman. [640] The southern king was the Devagiri Yádava Singhana II. (A.D. 1209-1247). [641]

Lavanaprasáda married Madanarájñí and by her had a son named Víradhavala. As heir apparent Víradhavala, who was also called Víra Vághelá or the Vághelá hero, [642] rose to such distinction as a warrior that in the end Lavanaprasáda abdicated in his favour. Probably to reconcile the people to his venturing to oppose his sovereign Bhímadeva, Lavanaprasáda gave out that in a dream the Luck of Anahilaváda appeared bewailing her home with unlighted shrines, broken walls, and jackal-haunted streets, and called on him to come to her rescue. [643] Though he may have gone to the length of opposing Bhímadeva by force of arms, Lavanaprasáda was careful to rule in his sovereign's name. Even after Lavanaprasáda's abdication, though his famous minister Vastupála considered it advisable, Víradhavala refused to take the supreme title. It was not until the accession of Víradhavala's son Vísaladeva that the head of the Vághelás took any higher title than Ránaka or chieftain. Lavanaprasáda's religious adviser or Guru was the poet Somesvara the author of the Kírtikaumudí and of the Vastupálacharita or Life of Vastupála, both being biographical accounts of Vastupála. The leading supporters both of Lavanaprasáda and of Víradhavala were their ministers the two Jain brothers Vastupála and Tejahpála the famous temple-builders on Ábu, Satruñjaya, and Girnár. According to one account Tejahpála remained at court, while Vastupála went as governor to Stambhatírtha or Cambay where he redressed wrongs and amassed wealth. [644]

One of the chief times of peril in Lavanaprasáda's reign was the joint attack of the Devagiri Yádava Singhana or Sinhana from the south and of four Márwár chiefs from the north. Lavanaprasáda and his son Víradhavala in joint command marched south to meet Singhana at Broach. While at Broach the Vághelás' position was made still more critical by the desertion of the Godhraha or Godhrá chief to Málwa and of the Láta or south Gujarát chief to Singhana. Still Lavanaprasáda pressed on, attacked Singhana, and gave him so crushing a defeat, that, though Lavanaprasáda had almost at once to turn north to meet the Málwa army, Singhana retired without causing further trouble. [645] Somesvara gives no reason for Singhana's withdrawal beyond the remark 'Deer do not follow the lion's path even when the lion has left it.' The true reason is supplied by a Manuscript called Forms of Treaties. [646] The details of a treaty between Sinhana and Lavanaprasáda under date Samvat 1288 (A.D. 1232) included among the Forms seem to show that the reason why Sinhana did not advance was that Lavanaprasáda and his son submitted and concluded an alliance. [647] In this copy of the treaty Sinhanadeva is called the great king of kings or paramount sovereign Mahárájádhirája, while Lavanaprasáda, Sanskritised into Lavanyáprasáda is called a Rána and a tributary chief Mahámandalesvara. The place where the treaty was concluded is styled "the victorious camp," and the date is Monday the fullmoon of Vaisákha in the year Samvat 1288 (A.D. 1232). The provisions are that, as before, each of the belligerents should confine himself to his own territory; neither of them should invade the possessions of the other; if a powerful enemy attacked either of them, they should jointly oppose him; if only a hostile general led the attack, troops should be sent against him; and if from the country of either any noble fled into the territory of the other taking with him anything of value he should not be allowed harbourage and all valuables in the refugee's possession should be restored. [648] His good fortune went with Lavanaprasáda in his attack on the Márwár chiefs whom he forced to retire. Meanwhile Sankha [649] who is described as the son of the ruler of Sindh but who seems to have held territory in Broach, raised a claim to Cambay and promised Vastupála Lavanaprasáda's governor, that, if Vastupála declared in his favour [650], he would be continued in his government. Vastupála rejected Sankha's overtures, met him in battle outside of Cambay, and forced him to retire. In honour of Vastupála's victory the people of Cambay held a great festival when Vastupála passed in state through the city to the shrine of the goddess Ekalla Víra outside of the town. [651]

Another of the deeds preserved in the Forms is a royal copperplate grant by Lavanaprasáda or Lávanyaprasáda of a village, not named, for the worship of Somanátha. Lavanaprasáda is described as the illustrious Ránaka, [652] the great chief, the local lord or Mandalesvara, the son of the illustrious Ránaka Ánalde born in the illustrious pedigree of the Chaulukya dynasty. The grant is noted as executed in the reign of Bhímadeva II. [653] while one Bhábhuya was his great minister. Though Bhímadeva was ruling in A.D. 1232 (Samvat 1288) Lavanaprasáda apparently had sufficient influence to make grants of villages and otherwise to act as the real ruler of Gujarát. It was apparently immediately after this grant (A.D. 1232?) that Lavanaprasáda abdicated in favour of Víradhavala. [654]

[Víradhavala, A.D. 1233-1238.] Soon after his accession Víradhavala, accompanied by his minister Tejahpála, started on an expedition against his wife's brothers Sángana and Chamunda the rulers of Vámanasthalí or Vanthalí near Junágadh. As in spite of their sister's advice Sángana and Chamunda refused to pay tribute the siege was pressed. Early in the fight the cry arose 'Víradhavala is slain.' But on his favourite horse Uparavata, Víradhavala put himself at the head of his troops, slew both the brothers, and gained the hoarded treasure of Vanthalí. [655] In an expedition against the chief of Bhadresvara, probably Bhadresar in Kacch, Víradhavala was less successful and was forced to accept the Kacch chief's terms. The chroniclers ascribe this reverse to three Rájput brothers who came to Víradhavala's court and offered their services for 3,00,000 drammas (about £7500). "For 3,00,000 drammas I can raise a thousand men" said Víradhavala, and the brothers withdrew. They went to the court of the Bhadresar chief, stated their terms, and were engaged. The night before the battle the brothers sent to Víradhavala saying 'Keep ready 3000 men, for through a triple bodyguard we will force our way.' The three brothers kept their word. They forced their way to Víradhavala, dismounted him, carried off his favourite steed Uparavata, but since they had been his guests they spared Víradhavala's life. [656]

Another of Víradhavala's expeditions was to East Gujarát. Ghughula, chief of Godraha or Godhrá, plundered the caravans that passed through his territory to the Gujarát ports. When threatened with punishment by Víradhavala, Ghughula in derision sent his overlord a woman's dress and a box of cosmetics. The minister Tejahpála, who was ordered to avenge this affront, dispatched some skirmishers ahead to raid the Godhra cattle. Ghughula attacked the raiders and drove them back in such panic that the main body of the army was thrown into disorder. The day was saved by the prowess of Tejahpála who in single combat unhorsed Ghughula and made him prisoner. Ghughula escaped the disgrace of the woman's dress and the cosmetic box with which he was decorated by biting his tongue so that he died. The conquest of Ghughula is said to have spread Víradhavala's power to the borders of Maháráshtra. [657] The chroniclers relate another success of Víradhavala's against Muizz-ud-dín apparently the famous Muhammad Gori Sultán Muizz-ud-dín Bahramsháh, the Sultán of Delhi (A.D. 1191-1205) [658] who led an expedition against Gujarát. The chief of Ábu was instructed to let the Musalmán force march south unmolested and when they were through to close the defiles against their return. The Gujarát army met the Musalmáns and the Ábu troops hung on their rear. The Musalmáns fled in confusion and cartloads of heads were brought to Víradhavala in Dholká. The chronicles give the credit of this success to Vastupála. They also credit Vastupála with a stratagem which induced the Sultán to think well of Víradhavala and prevented him taking steps to wipe out the disgrace of his defeat. Hearing that the Sultán's mother, or, according to another story, the Sultán's religious adviser, was going from Cambay to Makka Vastupála ordered his men to attack and plunder the vessels in which the pilgrimage was to be made. On the captain's complaint Vastupála had the pirates arrested and the property restored. So grateful was the owner, whether mother or guide, that Vastupála was taken to Delhi and arranged a friendly treaty between his master and the Sultán. [659]

Their lavish expenditure on objects connected with Jain worship make the brothers Vastupála and Tejahpála the chief heroes of the Jain chroniclers. They say when the Musalmán trader Sayad was arrested at Cambay his wealth was confiscated. Víradhavala claimed all but the dust which he left to Vastupála. Much of the dust was gold dust and a fire turned to dust more of the Sayad's gold and silver treasure. In this way the bulk of the Sayad's wealth passed to Vastupála. This wealth Vastupála and his brother Tejahpála went to bury in Hadálaka in Káthiáváda. In digging they chanced to come across a great and unknown treasure. According to the books the burden of their wealth so preyed on the brothers that they ceased to care for food. Finding the cause of her husband Tejahpála's anxiety Anupamá said 'Spend your wealth on a hill top. All can see it; no one can carry it away.' According to the chroniclers it was this advice, approved by their mother and by Vastupála's wife Lalitádeví, that led the brothers to adorn the summits of Ábu, Girnár, and Satruñjaya with magnificent temples.

The Satruñjaya temple which is dedicated to the twenty-third Tírthankara Neminátha is dated A.D. 1232 (Samvat 1288) and has an inscription by Somesvara, the author of the Kírtikaumudí telling how it was built. The Girnár temple, also dedicated to Neminátha, bears date A.D. 1232 (Samvat 1288). The Ábu temple, surpassing the others and almost every building in India in the richness and delicacy of its carving, is dedicated to Neminátha and dated A.D. 1231 (Samvat 1287). Such was the liberality of the brothers that to protect them against the cold mountain air each of their masons had a fire near him to warm himself and a hot dinner cooked for him at the close of the day. The finest carvers were paid in silver equal in weight to the dust chiselled out of their carvings. [660]

The author Somesvara describes how he twice came to the aid of his friend Vastupála. On one occasion he saved Vastupála from a prosecution for peculation. The second occasion was more serious. Simha the maternal uncle of king Vísaladeva whipped the servant of a Jain monastery. Enraged at this insult to his religion Vastupála hired a Rájput who cut off Simha's offending hand. The crime was proved and Vastupála was sentenced to death. But according to the Jains the persuasions of Somesvara not only made the king set Vastupála free, but led him to upbraid his uncle for beating the servant of a Jain monastery. Soon after his release Vastupála was seized with fever. Feeling the fever to be mortal he started for Satruñjaya but died on the way. His brother Tejahpála and his son Jayantapála burned his body on the holy hill, and over his ashes raised a shrine with the name Svargárohanaprásáda The shrine of the ascent into Heaven. [661]

In A.D. 1238 six years after his father's withdrawal from power Víradhavala died. One hundred and eighty-two servants passed with their lord through the flames, and such was the devotion that Tejahpála had to use force to prevent further sacrifices. [662]

[Vísaladeva, A.D. 1243-1261.] Of Víradhavala's two sons, Vírama Vísala and Pratápamalla, Vastupála favoured the second and procured his succession according to one account by forcing the old king to drink poison and preventing by arms the return to Anahilaváda of the elder brother Vírama who retired for help to Jábálipura (Jabalpur). Besides with his brother's supporters Vísala had to contend with Tribhuvanapála the representative of the Anahilaváda Solankis. Unlike his father and his grandfather Vísala refused to acknowledge an overlord. By A.D. 1243 he was established as sovereign in Anahilaváda. A later grant A.D. 1261 (Samvat 1317) from Kadi in North Gujarát shows that Anahilaváda was his capital and his title Mahárájádhirája King of Kings. According to his copperplates Vísaladeva was a great warrior, the crusher of the lord of Málwa, a hatchet at the root of the turbulence of Mewád, a volcanic fire to dry up Singhana of Devagiri's ocean of men. [663] Vísaladeva is further described as chosen as a husband by the daughter of Karnáta [664] and as ruling with success and good fortune in Anahilaváda with the illustrious Nágada as his minister. [665] The bards praise Vísaladeva for lessening the miseries of a three years famine, [666] and state that he built or repaired the fortifications of Vísalanagara in East and of Darbhavatí or Dabhoi in South Gujarát.

[Arjunadeva, A.D. 1262-1274.] During Vísaladeva's reign Vághela power was established throughout Gujarát. On Vísaladeva's death in A.D. 1261 the succession passed to Arjunadeva the son of Vísaladeva's younger brother Pratápamalla. [667] Arjunadeva proved a worthy successor and for thirteen years (A.D. 1262-1274; Samvat 1318-1331) maintained his supremacy. Two stone inscriptions one from Verával dated A.D. 1264 (Samvat 1320) the other from Kacch dated A.D. 1272 (Samvat 1328) show that his territory included both Kacch and Káthiáváda, and an inscription of his successor Sárangadeva shows that his power passed as far east as Mount Ábu.

The Verával inscription of A.D. 1264 (Samvat 1320), which is in the temple of the goddess Harsutá, [668] describes Arjunadeva as the king of kings, the emperor (chakravartin) of the illustrious Chaulukya race, who is a thorn in the heart of the hostile king Nihsankamalla, the supreme lord, the supreme ruler, who is adorned by a long line of ancestral kings, who resides in the famous Anahillapátaka. The grant allots certain income from houses and shops in Somanátha Patan to a mosque built by Piroz a Muhammadan shipowner of Ormuz which is then mentioned as being under the sway of Amír Rukn-ud-dín. [669] The grant also provides for the expenses of certain religious festivals to be celebrated by the Shiite sailors of Somanátha Patan, and lays down that under the management of the Musalmán community of Somanátha any surplus is to be made over to the holy districts of Makka and Madina. The grant is written in bad Sanskrit and contains several Arabic Persian and Gujaráti words. Its chief interest is that it is dated in four eras, "in 662 of the Prophet Muhammad who is described as the teacher of the sailors, who live near the holy lord of the Universe that is Somanátha; in 1320 of the great king Vikrama; in 945 of the famous Valabhi; and in 151 of the illustrious Simha." The date is given in these four different eras, because the Muhammadan is the donor's era, the Samvat the era of the country, the Valabhi of the province, and the Simha of the locality. [670] The Kacch inscription is at the village of Rav about sixty miles east of Bhúj. It is engraved on a memorial slab at the corner of the courtyard wall of an old temple and bears date A.D. 1272 (Samvat 1328). It describes Arjunadeva as the great king of kings, the supreme ruler, the supreme lord. It mentions the illustrious Máladeva as his chief minister and records the building of a step-well in the village of Rav. [671]

[Sárangadeva, A.D. 1275-1296.] Arjunadeva was succeeded by his son Sárangadeva. According to the Vichárasreni Sárangadeva ruled for twenty-two years from A.D. 1274 to 1296 (Samvat 1331-1353). Inscriptions of the reign of Sárangadeva have been found in Kacch and at Ábu. The Kacch inscription is on a pália or memorial slab now at the village of Khokhar near Kanthkot which was brought there from the holy village of Bhadresar about thirty-five miles north-east of Mándvi. It bears date A.D. 1275 (Samvat 1332) and describes Sárangadeva as the great king of kings, the supreme ruler, the supreme lord ruling at Anahillapátaka with the illustrious Máladeva as his chief minister. [672] The Ábu inscription dated A.D. 1294 (Samvat 1350) in the temple of Vastupála regulates certain dues payable to the Jain temple and mentions Sárangadeva as sovereign of Anahillapátaka and as having for vassal Vísaladeva ruler of the old capital of Chandrávati about twelve miles south of Mount Ábu. [673] A third inscription dated A.D. 1287 (Samvat 1343), originally from Somanátha, is now at Cintra in Portugal. It records the pilgrimages and religious benefactions of one Tripurántaka, a follower of the Nakulísá Pásupata sect, in the reign of Sárangadeva, whose genealogy is given. A manuscript found in Ahmadábád is described as having been finished on Sunday the 3rd of the dark fortnight of Jyeshtha in the Samvat year 1350, in the triumphant reign of Sárangadeva the great king of kings, while his victorious army was encamped near Ásápalli (Ahmadábád). [674]

[Karnadeva, A.D. 1296-1304.] Sárangadeva's successor Karnadeva ruled for eight years A.D. 1296-1304 (Samvat 1352-1360). Under this weak ruler, who was known as Ghelo or the Insane, Gujarát passed into Musalmán hands. In A.D. 1297 Alaf Khán the brother of the Emperor Alá-ud-dín Khilji (A.D. 1296-1317) with Nasrat Khán led an expedition against Gujarát. They laid waste the country and occupied Anahilaváda. Leaving his wives, children, elephants, and baggage Karnadeva fled to Ramadeva the Yádava chief of Devagiri. [675] All his wealth fell to his conquerors. Among the wives of Karnadeva who were made captive was a famous beauty named Kauládeví, who was carried to the harem of the Sultán. In the plunder of Cambay Nasrat Khán took a merchant's slave Malik Káfur who shortly after became the Emperor's chief favourite. From Cambay the Muhammadans passed to Káthiáváda and destroyed the temple of Somanátha. In 1304 Alaf Khán's term of office as governor of Gujarát was renewed. According to the Mirát-i-Ahmadí after the renewal of his appointment, from white marble pillars taken from many Jain temples, Alaf Khán constructed at Anahilaváda the Jáma Masjid or general mosque.

In A.D. 1306 the Cambay slave Káfur who had already risen to be Sultán Alá-ud-dín's chief favourite was invested with the title of Malik Naib and placed in command of an army sent to subdue the Dakhan. Alaf Khán, the governor of Gujarát, was ordered to help Malik Káfur in his arrangements. At the same time Kauládeví persuaded the Emperor to issue orders that her daughter Devaladeví should be sent to her to Delhi. Devaladeví was then with her father the unfortunate Karnadeva in hiding in Báglán in Násik. Malik Káfur sent a messenger desiring Karnadeva to give up his daughter. Karnadeva refused and Alaf Khán was ordered to lead his army to the Báglán hills and capture the princess. While for two months he succeeded in keeping the Muhammadan army at bay, Karnadeva received and accepted an offer for the hand of Devaladeví from the Devagiri Yádava chief Sankaradeva. On her way to Devagiri near Elura Devaladeví's escort was attacked by a party of Alaf Khán's troops, and the lady seized and sent to Delhi where she was married to prince Khizar Khán. Nothing more is known of Karnadeva who appears to have died a fugitive.

Though the main cities and all central Gujarát passed under Musalmán rule a branch of the Vághelás continued to hold much of the country to the west of the Sábarmatí, while other branches maintained their independence in the rugged land beyond Ambá Bhawání between Vírpur on the Mahí and Posiná at the northmost verge of Gujarát. [676]

GENEALOGY OF THE VÁGHELÁS.

Dhavala, A.D. 1160 Married Kumárapála's Aunt. | Arnorája, A.D. 1170 Founder of Vághela. | Lavanaprasáda, A.D. 1200 Chief of Dholká. | Víradhavala, A.D. 1233-1238 Chief of Dholká. | Vísaladeva, A.D. 1243-1261 King of Anahilaváda. | Arjunadeva, A.D. 1262-1274. | Sárangadeva, A.D. 1274-1295. | Karnadeva or Ghelo, A.D. 1296-1304.

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II. MUSALMÁN GUJARÁT

A.D. 1297-1760.

This history of Musalmán Gujarát is based on translations of the Mirat-i-Sikandari (A.D. 1611) and of the Mirat-i-Áhmedi (A.D. 1756) by the late Colonel J. W. Watson. Since Colonel Watson's death in 1889 the translations have been revised and the account enriched by additions from the Persian texts of Farishtah and of the two Mirats by Mr. Fazl Lutfulláh Farídi of Surat. A careful comparison has also been made with other extracts in Elliot's History of India and in Bayley's History of Gujarát.

MUSALMÁN GUJARÁT.

A.D. 1297-1760.

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Introduction

Muhammadan rule in Gujarát lasted from the conquest of the province by the Dehli emperor Alá-ud-dín Khilji (A.D. 1295-1315), shortly before the close of the thirteenth century A.D., to the final defeat of the Mughal viceroy Momín Khán by the Maráthás and the loss of the city of Áhmedábád at the end of February 1758.

This whole term of Musalmán ascendancy, stretching over slightly more than four and a half centuries, may conveniently be divided into three parts. The First, the rule of the early sovereigns of Dehli, lasting a few years more than a century, or, more strictly from A.D. 1297 to A.D. 1403; the Second, the rule of the Áhmedábád kings, a term of nearly a century and three-quarters, from A.D. 1403 to A.D. 1573; the Third, the rule of the Mughal Emperors, when, for little less than two hundred years, A.D. 1573-1760, Gujarát was administered by viceroys of the court of Dehli.

[Territorial Limits.] In the course of these 450 years the limits of Gujarát varied greatly. In the fourteenth century the territory nominally under the control of the Musalmán governors of Pátan (Anahilaváda) extended southwards from Jhálor, about fifty miles north of Mount Abu, to the neighbourhood of Bombay, and in breadth from the line of the Málwa and Khándesh hills to the western shores of peninsular Gujarát. [677] The earlier kings of Áhmedábád (A.D. 1403-1450), content with establishing their power on a firm footing, did not greatly extend the limits of their kingdom. Afterwards, during the latter part of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries (A.D. 1450-1530), the dominions of the Áhmedábád kings gradually spread till they included large tracts to the east and north-east formerly in the possession of the rulers of Khándesh and Málwa. Still later, during the years of misrule between A.D. 1530 and A.D. 1573, the west of Khándesh and the north of the Konkan ceased to form part of the kingdom of Gujarát. Finally, under the arrangements introduced by the emperor Akbar in A.D. 1583, more lands were restored to Málwa and Khándesh. With the exception of Jhálor and Sirohi on the north, Dungarpur and Bánsváda on the north-east, and Alirájpur on the east, since handed to Rájputána and Central India, the limits of Gujarát remain almost as they were laid down by Akbar.

[Sorath.] Though, under the Musalmáns, peninsular Gujarát did not bear the name of Káthiáváda, it was then, as at present, considered part of the province of Gujarát. During the early years of Musalmán rule, the peninsula, together with a small portion of the adjoining mainland, was known as Sorath, a shortened form of Saurâshtra, the name originally applied by the Hindus to a long stretch of sea-coast between the banks of the Indus and Daman. [678] Towards the close of the sixteenth century the official use of the word Sorath was confined to a portion, though by much the largest part, of the peninsula. At the same time, the name Sorath seems then, and for long after, to have been commonly applied to the whole peninsula. For the author of the Mirat-i-Áhmedi, writing as late as the middle of the eighteenth century (A.D. 1756: A.H. 1170), speaks of Sorath as divided into five districts or zilláhs, Hálár, Káthiáváda, Gohilváda, Bábriáváda, and Jetváda, and notices that though Navánagar was considered a separate district, its tribute was included in the revenue derived from Sorath. [679] In another passage the same writer thus defines Sauráshtra:

Sauráshtra or Sorath comprehends the Sarkár of Sorath the Sarkár of Islámnagar or Navánagar and the Sarkár of Kachh or Bhujnagar. It also includes several zillahs or districts, Naiyad which they call Jatwár, Hálár or Navánagar and its vicinity, Káthiáváda, Gohilváda, Bábriáváda, Chorvár, Panchál, Okhágir in the neighbourhood of Jagat otherwise called Dwárka, Prabhás Khetr or Pátan Somnáth and its neighbourhood, Nághír also called Sálgogha, and the Nalkántha. [680]

The present Sorath stretches no further than the limits of Junágadh, Bántwa, and a few smaller holdings.

[Káthiáváda.] The name Káthiáváda is of recent origin. It was not until after the establishment of Musalmán power in Gujarát that any portion of the peninsula came to bear the name of the tribe of Káthis. Even as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, the name Káthiáváda was applied only to one of the sub-divisions of the peninsula. In the disorders which prevailed during the latter part of the eighteenth century, the Káthis made themselves conspicuous. As it was from the hardy horsemen of this tribe that the tribute-exacting Maráthás met with the fiercest resistance, they came to speak of the whole peninsula as the land of the Káthis. This use was adopted by the early British officers and has since continued.

[Under the kings, 1403-1573.] Under the Áhmedábád kings, as it still is under British rule, Gujarát was divided politically into two main parts; one, called the khálsah or crown domain administered directly by the central authority; the other, on payment of tribute in service or in money, left under the control of its former rulers. The amount of tribute paid by the different chiefs depended, not on the value of their territory, but on the terms granted to them when they agreed to become feudatories of the kings of Áhmedábád. Under the Gujarát Sultáns this tribute was occasionally collected by military expeditions headed by the king in person and called mulkgíri or country-seizing circuits.

[States.] The internal management of the feudatory states was unaffected by their payment of tribute. Justice was administered and the revenue collected in the same way as under the Anahilapur kings. The revenue consisted, as before, of a share of the crops received in kind, supplemented by the levy of special cesses, trade, and transit dues. The chief's share of the crops differed according to the locality; it rarely exceeded one-third of the produce, it rarely fell short of one-sixth. From some parts the chief's share was realised directly from the cultivator by agents called mantris; from other parts the collection was through superior landowners. [681]

[Districts.] The Áhmedábád kings divided the portion of their territory which was under their direct authority into districts or sarkárs. These districts were administered in one of two ways. They were either assigned to nobles in support of a contingent of troops, or they were set apart as crown domains and managed by paid officers. The officers placed in charge of districts set apart as [Crown Lands.] crown domains were called muktia. [682] Their chief duties were to preserve the peace and to collect the revenue. For the maintenance of order, a body of soldiers from the army head-quarters at Áhmedábád was detached for service in each of these divisions, and placed under the command of the district governor. At the same time, in addition to the presence of this detachment of regular troops, every district contained certain fortified outposts called thánás, varying in number according to the character of the country and the temper of the people. These posts were in charge of officers called thánadárs subordinate to the district governor. They were garrisoned by bodies of local soldiery, for whose maintenance, in addition to money payments, a small assignment of land was set apart in the neighbourhood of the post. On the arrival of the tribute-collecting army the governors of the districts through which it passed were expected to join the main body with their local contingents. At other times the district governors had little control over the feudatory chiefs in the neighbourhood of their charge.

[Fiscal.] For fiscal purposes each district or sarkár was distributed among a certain number of sub-divisions or parganáhs, each under a paid official styled ámil or tahsildár. These sub-divisional officers realised the state demand, nominally one-half of the produce, by the help of the headmen of the villages under their charge. In the sharehold and simple villages of North Gujarát these village headmen were styled patels or according to Musalmán writers mukaddams and in the simple villages of the south they were known as desáis. They arranged for the final distribution of the total demand in joint villages among the shareholders, and in simple villages from the individual cultivators. [683] The sub-divisional officer presented a statement of the accounts of the villages in his sub-division to the district officer, whose record of the revenue of his whole district was in turn forwarded to the head revenue officer at court. As a check on the internal management of his charge, and especially to help him in the work of collecting the revenue, with each district governor was associated an accountant. Further that each of these officers might be the greater check on the other, king Áhmed I. (A.D. 1412-1443) enforced the rule that when the governor was chosen from among the royal slaves the accountant should be a free man, and that when the accountant was a slave the district governor should be chosen from some other class. This practise was maintained till the end of the reign of Muzaffar Sháh (A.D. 1511-1525), when, according to the Mirat-i-Áhmedi, the army became much increased, and the ministers, condensing the details of revenue, farmed it on contract, so that many parts formerly yielding one rupee now produced ten, and many others seven eight or nine, and in no place was there a less increase than from ten to twenty per cent. Many other changes occurred at the same time, and the spirit of innovation creeping into the administration the wholesome system of checking the accounts was given up and mutiny and confusion spread over Gujarát. [684]

[Assigned Lands.] The second class of directly governed districts were the lands assigned to nobles for the maintenance of contingents of troops. As in other parts of India, it would seem that at first these assignments were for specified sums equal to the pay of the contingent. When such assignments were of long standing, and were large enough to swallow the whole revenue of a district, it was natural to simplify the arrangement by transferring the collection of the revenue and the whole management of the district to the military leader of the contingent. So long as the central power was strong, precautions were doubtless taken to prevent the holder of the grant from unduly rackrenting his district and appropriating to himself more than the pay of the troops, or from exercising any powers not vested in the local governors of districts included within the crown domains. As in other parts of India, those stipulations were probably enforced by the appointment of certain civil officers directly from the government to inspect the whole of the noble's proceedings, as well in managing his troops as in administering his lands. [685] The decline of the king's power freed the nobles from all check or control in the management of their lands. And when, in A.D. 1536, the practice of farming was introduced into the crown domains, it would seem to have been adopted by the military leaders in their lands, and to have been continued till the annexation of Gujarát by the emperor Akbar in A.D. 1573.

[Under the Mughals, A.D. 1573-1760.] It was the policy of Akbar rather to improve the existing system than to introduce a new form of government. After to some extent contracting the limits of Gujarát he constituted it a province or sûbah of the empire, appointing to its [Administration.] government an officer of the highest rank with the title of sûbahdár or viceroy. As was the case under the Áhmedábád kings, the province continued to be divided into territories managed by feudatory chiefs, and [Crown Lands.] districts administered by officers appointed either by the court of Dehli or by the local viceroy. The head-quarters of the army remained at Áhmedábád, and detachments were told off and placed under the orders of the officers in charge of the directly administered divisions. These district governors, as before, belonged to two classes, paid officers responsible for the management of the crown domains and military leaders in possession of lands assigned to them in pay of their contingent of troops. The governors of the crown domains, who were now known as faujdárs or commanders, had, in addition to the command of the regular troops, the control of the outposts maintained within the limits of their charge. Like their predecessors they accompanied the viceroy in his yearly circuit for the collection of tribute.

As a check on the military governors and to help them in collecting the revenue, the distinct class of account officers formerly established by king Áhmed I. (A.D. 1412-1443) was again introduced. The head of this branch of the administration was an officer, second in rank to the viceroy alone, appointed direct from the court of Dehli with the title of diván. Besides acting as collector-general of the revenues of the province, this officer was also the head of its civil administration. His title diván is generally translated minister. And though the word minister does not express the functions of the office, which corresponded more nearly with those of a chief secretary, it represents with sufficient accuracy the relation in which the holder of the office of diván generally stood to the viceroy.

[Revenue Officials.] For its revenue administration each district or group of districts had its revenue officials called amíns who corresponded to the collector of modern times. There were also amíns in the customs department separate from those whose function was to control and administer the land revenue. Beneath the amín came the ámil [686] who carried on the actual collection of the land revenue or customs in each district or parganáh, and below the ámil were the fáîls, mushrifs, or kárkúns that is the revenue clerks. The ámil corresponded to the modern mámlatdár, both terms meaning him who carries on the amal or revenue management. In the leading ports the ámil of the customs was called mutasaddi that is civil officer.

[Village Officers.] The ámil or mámlatdár dealt directly with the village officials, namely with the mukaddam or headman, the patwári or lease manager, the kánúngo or accountant, and the haváldár or grain-yard guardian. The haváldár superintended the separation of the government share of the produce; apportioned to the classes subject to forced labour their respective turns of duty; and exercised a general police superintendence by means of subordinates called pasáitás or vartaniás. In ports under the mutasaddi was a harbour-master or sháh-bandar.

[Desáis.] Crown sub-divisions had, in addition, the important class called desáis. The desáis' duty appears at first to have been to collect the salámi or tribute due by the smaller chiefs, landholders, and vántádárs or sharers. For this, in Akbar's time, the desái received a remuneration of 2 1/2 per cent on the sum collected. Under the first viceroy Mírza Ázíz Kokaltásh (A.D. 1573-1575) this percentage was reduced to one-half of its former amount, and in later times this one-half was again reduced by one-half. Though the Muhammadan historians give no reason for so sweeping a reduction, the cause seems to have been the inability of the desáis to collect the tribute without the aid of a military force. Under the new system the desái seems merely to have kept the accounts of the tribute due, and the records both of the amount which should be levied as tribute and of other customary rights of the crown. In later times the desáis were to a great extent superseded by the district accountants or majmudárs, and many desáis, especially in south Gujarát, seem to have sunk to patels.

[Land Tax.] Up to the viceroyalty of Mírza Ísa Tarkhán (A.D. 1642-1644), the land tax appears to have been levied from the cultivator in a fixed sum, but he was also subject to numerous other imposts. Land grants in wazífah carried with them an hereditary title and special exemption from all levies except the land tax. The levy in kind appears to have ceased before the close of Mughal rule. In place of a levy in kind each village paid a fixed sum or jama through the district accountant or majmudár who had taken the place of the desái. As in many cases the jama really meant the lump sum at which the crown villages were assessed and farmed to the chiefs and patels, on the collapse of the empire many villages thus farmed to chiefs and landlords were retained by them with the connivance of the majmudárs desáis and others.

[Justice.] The administration of justice seems to have been very complete. In each kasbah or town kázis, endowed with glebe lands in addition to a permanent salary, adjudicated disputes among Muhammadans according to the laws of Islám. Disputes between Muhammadans and unbelievers, or amongst unbelievers, were decided by the department called the sadárat, the local judge being termed a sadr. The decisions of the local kázis and sadrs were subject to revision by the kázi or sadr of the súbah who resided at Áhmedábád. And as a last resort the Áhmedábád decisions were subject to appeal to the Kázi-ul-Kuzzát and the Sadr-ûs-Sudûr at the capital.

[Fiscal.] The revenue appears to have been classed under four main heads: 1. The Khazánah-i-Ámirah or imperial treasury which comprehended the land tax received from the crown parganáhs or districts, the tribute, the five per cent customs dues from infidels, the import dues on stuffs, and the sáyer or land customs including transit dues, slave market dues, and miscellaneous taxes. 2. The treasury of arrears into which were paid government claims in arrear either from the ámils or from the farmers of land revenue; takávi advances due by the raiyats; and tribute levied by the presence of a military force. 3. The treasury of charitable endowments. Into this treasury was paid the 2 1/2 per cent levied as customs dues from Muhammadans. [687] The pay of the religious classes was defrayed from this treasury. 4. The treasury, into which the jaziah or capitation tax levied from zimmís or infidels who acknowledged Muhammadan rule, was paid. The proceeds were expended in charity and public works. After the death of the emperor Farrukhsiyar (A.D. 1713-1719), this source of revenue was abolished. The arrangements introduced by Akbar in the end of the sixteenth century remained in force till the death of Aurangzíb in A.D. 1707. Then trouble and perplexity daily increased, till in A.D. 1724-25, Hamíd Khán usurped the government lands, and, seeking to get rid of the servants and assignments, gradually obtained possession of the records of the registry office. The keepers of the records were scattered, and yearly revenue statements ceased to be received from the districts. [688]

[Assigned Lands.] Akbar continued the system of assigning lands to military leaders in payment of their contingents of troops. Immediately after the annexation in A.D. 1573, almost the whole country was divided among the great nobles. [689] Except that the revenues of certain tracts were set aside for the imperial exchequer the directly governed districts passed into the hands of military leaders who employed their own agents to collect the revenue. During the seventeenth century the practice of submitting a yearly record of their revenues, and the power of the viceroy to bring them to account for misgovernment, exercised a check on the management of the military leaders. And during this time a yearly surplus revenue of £600,000 (Rs. 60,00,000) from the assigned and crown lands was on an average forwarded from Gujarát to Dehli. In the eighteenth century the decay of the viceroy's authority was accompanied by the gradually increased power of the military leaders in possession of assigned districts, till finally, as in the case of the Nawábs of Broach and Surat, they openly claimed the position of independent rulers. [690]

[Minor Offices.] Of both leading and minor officials the Mirat-i-Áhmedi supplies the following additional details. The highest officer who was appointed under the seal of the minister of the empire was the provincial diván or minister. He had charge of the fiscal affairs of the province and of the revenues of the khálsa or crown lands, and was in some matters independent of the viceroy. Besides his personal salary he had 150 sawárs for two provincial thánás Arjanpur and Khambália. Under the diván the chief officers were the píshkár diván his first assistant, who was appointed under imperial orders by the patent of the diván, the daroghah or head of the office, and the sharf or mushrif and tehwildár of the daftar khánáhs, who presided over the accounts with munshis and muharrirs or secretaries and writers. The kázis, both town and city, with the sanction of the emperor were appointed by the chief law officer of the empire through the chief law officer of the province. They were lodged by the state, paid partly in cash partly in land, and kept up a certain number of troopers. In the kázis' courts wakíls or pleaders and muftís or law officers drew 8 as. to Re. 1 a day. Newly converted Musalmáns also drew 8 as. a day. The city censor or muhtasib had the supervision of morals and of weights and measures. He was paid in cash and land, and was expected to keep up sixty troopers. The news-writer, who was sometimes also bakhshi or military paymaster, had a large staff of news-writers called wákiâh-nigár who worked in the district courts and offices as well as in the city courts. He received his news-reports every evening and embodied them in a letter which was sent to court by camel post. A second staff of news-writers called sawáníhnigár reported rumours. A third set were the harkárás on the viceroy's staff. Postal chaukis or stations extended from Áhmedábád to the Ajmír frontier, each with men and horse ready to carry the imperial post which reached Sháh Jehánábád or Dehli in seven days. A line of posts also ran south through Broach to the Dakhan. The faujdárs or military police, who were sometimes commanders of a thousand and held estates, controlled both the city and the district police. The kotwál or head of the city night-watch was appointed by the viceroy. He had fifty troopers and a hundred foot. In the treasury department were the amín or chief, the dároghah, the mushrif, the treasurer, and five messengers. In the medical department were a Yúnáni or Greek school and a Hindu physician, two under-physicians on eight and ten annas a day, and a surgeon. The yearly grant for food and medicine amounted to Rs. 2000. [691]

[Land Tenures.] Besides the class of vernacular terms that belong to the administration of the province, certain technical words connected with the tenure of land are of frequent occurrence in this history. For each of these, in addition to the English equivalent which as far as possible has been given in the text, some explanation seems necessary. During the period to which this history refers, the superior holders of the land of the province belonged to two main classes, those whose claims dated from before the Musalmán conquest and those whose interest in the land was based on a Musalmán grant. By the Musalmán historians, landholders of the first class, who were all Hindus, are called zamíndárs, while landholders of the second class, Musalmáns as a rule, are spoken of as jágírdárs. Though the term zamíndár was used to include the whole body of superior Hindu landholders, in practice a marked distinction was drawn between the almost independent chief, who still enjoyed his Hindu title of rája, rával, ráv, or jám, and the petty claimant to a share in a government village, who in a Hindu state would have been known as a garásiá. [692]

[Hereditary Hindu Landholders.] The larger landholders, who had succeeded in avoiding complete subjection, were, as noticed above, liable only for the payment of a certain fixed sum, the collection of which by the central power in later times usually required the presence of a military force. With regard to the settlement of the claims of the smaller landholders of the superior class, whose estates fell within the limits of the directly administered districts, no steps seem to have been taken till the reign of Áhmed Sháh I. (A.D. 1411-1443). About the year A.D. 1420 the peace of his kingdom was so broken by agrarian disturbances, that Áhmed Sháh agreed, on condition of their paying tribute and performing military service, to re-grant to the landholders of the zamíndár class as hereditary possessions a one-fourth share of their former village lands. The portion so set apart was called vánta or share, and the remainder, retained as state land, was called talpat. This agreement continued till, in the year A.D. 1545, during the reign of Mahmúd Sháh II. (A.D. 1536-1553), an attempt was made to annex these private shares to the crown. This measure caused much discontent and disorder. It was reversed by the emperor Akbar who, as part of the settlement of the province in A.D. 1583, restored their one-fourth share to the landholders, and, except that the Maráthás afterwards levied an additional quit-rent from these lands, the arrangements then introduced have since continued in force. [693]

[Levies.] During the decay of Musalmán rule in Gujarát in the first half of the eighteenth century, shareholders of the garásia class in government villages, who were always ready to increase their power by force, levied many irregular exactions from their more peaceful neighbours, the cultivators or inferior landholders. These levies are known as vol that is a forced contribution or pál that is protection. All have this peculiar characteristic that they were paid by the cultivators of crown lands to petty marauders to purchase immunity from their attacks. They in no case partook of the nature of dues imposed by a settled government on its own subjects. Tora garás, more correctly toda garás, is another levy which had its origin in eighteenth century disorder. It was usually a readymoney payment taken from villages which, though at the time crown or khálsa, had formerly belonged to the garásia who exacted the levy. Besides a readymoney payment contributions in kind were sometimes exacted.

[Service Lands.] The second class of superior landholders were those whose title was based on a Musalmán grant. Such grants were either assignments of large tracts of land to the viceroy, district-governors, and nobles, to support the dignity of their position and maintain a contingent of troops, or they were allotments on a smaller scale granted in reward for some special service. Land granted with these objects was called jágír, and the holder of the land jágírdár. In theory, on the death of the original grantee, such possessions were strictly resumable; in practice they tended to become hereditary. No regular payments were required from holders of jágírs. Only under the name of peshkash occasional contributions were demanded. These occasional contributions generally consisted of such presents as a horse, an elephant, or some other article of value. They had more of the nature of a freewill offering than of an enforced tribute. Under the Musalmáns contributions of this kind were the only payments exacted from proprietors of the jágírdár class. But the Maráthás, in addition to contributions, imposed on jágírdárs a regular tribute, similar to that paid by the representatives of the original class of superior Hindu landholders.

Under Musalmán rule great part of Gujarát was always in the hands of jágírdárs. So powerful were they that on two occasions under the Áhmedábád kings, in A.D. 1554 and A.D. 1572, the leading nobles distributed among themselves the entire area of the kingdom. [694] Again, during the eighteenth century, when Mughal rule was on the decline, the jágírdárs by degrees won for themselves positions of almost complete independence. [695]

[Condition of Gujarát, A.D. 1297-1760.] The changes in the extent of territory and in the form of administration illustrate the effect of the government on the condition of the people during the different periods of Musalmán rule. The following summary of the leading characteristics of each of the main divisions of the four-and-a-half centuries of Musalmán ascendancy may serve as an introduction to the detailed narrative of events.

[Under the Early Viceroys, 1297-1403.] On conquering Gujarát in A.D. 1297 the Musalmáns found the country in disorder. The last kings of Anahilapur or Pátan, suffering under the defects of an incomplete title, held even their crown lands with no firmness of grasp, and had allowed the outlying territory to slip almost entirely from their control. Several of the larger and more distant rulers had resumed their independence. The Bhíls and Kolis of the hills, forests, and rough river banks were in revolt. And stranger chiefs, driven south by the Musalmán conquests in Upper India, had robbed the central power of much territory. [696] The records of the early Musalmán governors (A.D. 1297-1391) show suspicion on the side of the Dehli court and disloyalty on the part of more than one viceroy, much confusion throughout the province, and little in the way of government beyond the exercise of military force. At the same time, in spite of wars and rebellions, the country, in parts at least, seems to have been well cultivated, and trade and manufactures to have been flourishing. [697]

[Under the Kings, 1403-1573.] The period of the rule of the Áhmedábád kings (A.D. 1403-1573) contains two divisions, one lasting from A.D. 1403 to A.D. 1530, on the whole a time of strong government and of growing power and prosperity; the other the forty-three years from A.D. 1530 to the conquest of the province by the emperor Akbar in A.D. 1573, a time of disorder and misrule. In A.D. 1403 when Gujarát separated from Dehli the new king held but a narrow strip of plain. On the north were the independent chiefs of Sirohi and Jhálor, from whom he occasionally levied contributions. On the east the Rája of Ídar, another Rájput prince, was in possession of the western skirts of the hills and forests, and the rest of that tract was held by the mountain tribes of Bhils and Kolis. On the west the peninsula was in the hands of nine or ten Hindu tribes, probably tributary, but by no means obedient. [698] In the midst of so unsettled and warlike a population, all the efforts of Muzaffar I., the founder of the dynasty, were spent in establishing his power. It was not until the reign of his successor Áhmed I. (A.D. 1412-1443) that steps were taken to settle the different classes of the people in positions of permanent order. About the year A.D. 1420 two important measures were introduced. Of these one assigned lands for the support of the troops, and the other recognised the rights of the superior class of Hindu landholders to a portion of the village lands they had formerly held. The effect of these changes was to establish order throughout the districts directly under the authority of the crown. And though, in the territories subject to feudatory chiefs, the presence of an armed force was still required to give effect to the king's claims for tribute, his increasing power and wealth made efforts at independence more hopeless, and gradually secured the subjection of the greater number of his vassals. During the latter part of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth century the power of the Áhmedábád kings was at its height. At that time their dominions included twenty-five divisions or sarkárs. Among nine of these namely Pátan, Áhmedábád, Sunth, Godhra, Chámpáner, Baroda, Broach, Nándod or Rájpípla, and Surat the central plain was distributed. In addition in the north were four divisions, Sirohi, Jhálor, Jodhpur, and Nágor now in south-west and central Rájputána; in the north-east two, Dúngarpur and Bánsváda, now in the extreme south of Rájputána; in the east and south-east three, Nandurbár now in Khándesh, Mulher or Báglán now in Násik, and Rám Nagar or Dharampur now in Surat; in the south four, Danda-Rájapuri or Janjira, Bombay, Bassein, and Daman now in the Konkan; in the west two, Sorath and Navánagar now in Káthiáváda; and Kachh in the north-west. Besides the revenues of these districts, tribute was received from the rulers of Ahmednagar, Burhánpur, Berár, Golkonda, and Bijápur, and customs dues from twenty-five ports on the western coast of India and from twenty-six foreign marts, some of them in India and others in the Persian Gulf and along the Arabian coast. [699] The total revenue from these three sources is said in prosperous times to have amounted to a yearly sum of £11,460,000 (Rs. 11,46,00,000). Of this total amount the territorial revenue from the twenty-five districts yielded £5,840,000 (Rs. 5,84,00,000), or slightly more than one-half. Of the remaining £5,620,000 (Rs. 5,62,00,000) about one-fifth part was derived from the Dakhan tribute and the rest from customs-dues. [700]

The buildings at Áhmedábád, and the ruins of Chámpáner and Mehmúdábád, prove how much wealth was at the command of the sovereign and his nobles, while the accounts of travellers seem to show that the private expenditure of the rulers was not greater than the kingdom was well able to bear. The Portuguese traveller Duarte Barbosa, who was in Gujarát between A.D. 1511 and A.D. 1514, found the capital Chámpáner a great city, in a very fertile country of abundant provisions, with many cows sheep and goats and plenty of fruit, so that it was full of all things. [701] Áhmedábád was still larger, very rich and well supplied, embellished with good streets and squares, with houses of stone and cement. It was not from the interior districts of the province that the Áhmedábád kings derived the chief part of their wealth, but from those lying along the coast, which were enriched by manufactures and commerce. [702] So it was that along the shores of the gulf of Cambay and southward as far as Bombay the limit of the Gujarát kingdom, besides many small sea-ports, Barbosa chooses out for special mention twelve 'towns of commerce, very rich and of great trade.' Among these was Diu, off the south coast of Káthiáváda, yielding so large a revenue to the king as to be 'a marvel and amazement.' And chief of all Cambay, in a goodly, fertile, and pretty country full of abundant provisions; with rich merchants and men of great prosperity; with craftsmen and mechanics of subtle workmanship in cotton, silk, ivory, silver, and precious stones; the people well dressed, leading luxurious lives, much given to pleasure and amusement. [703]

The thirty-eight years between the defeat of king Bahádur by the emperor Humáyún in A.D. 1535 and the annexation of Gujarát by Akbar in A.D. 1573 was a time of confusion. Abroad, the superiority of Gujarát over the neighbouring powers was lost, and the limits of the kingdom shrank; at home, after the attempted confiscation (A.D. 1545) of their shares in village lands the disaffection of the superior landowners became general, and the court, beyond the narrow limits of the crown domains, ceased to exercise substantial control over either its chief nobles or the more turbulent classes. In spite of these forty years of disorder, the province retained so much of its former prosperity, that the boast of the local historians that in A.D. 1573 Gujarát was in every respect allowed to be the finest country in Hindustán is supported by the details shortly afterwards (A.D. 1590) given by Abul Fazl in the Áin-i-Akbari. The high road from Pátan to Baroda was throughout its length of 150 miles (100 kos) lined on both sides with mango trees; the fields were bounded with hedges; and such was the abundance of mango and other fruit trees that the whole country seemed a garden. The people were well housed in dwellings with walls of brick and mortar and with tiled roofs; many of them rode in carriages drawn by oxen; the province was famous for its painters, carvers, inlayers, and other craftsmen. [704]

[Under the Mughals, 1573-1760.] Like the period of the rule of the Áhmedábád kings, the period of Mughal rule contains two divisions, a time of good government lasting from A.D. 1573 to A.D. 1700, and a time of disorder from A.D. 1700 to A.D. 1760. Under the arrangements introduced by the emperor Akbar in A.D. 1583, the area of the province was considerably curtailed. Of its twenty-five districts nine were restored to the states from which the vigour of the Áhmedábád kings had wrested them; Jálor and Jodhpur were transferred to Rájputána; Nágor to Ajmír; Mulher and Nandurbár to Khándesh; Bombay, Bassein, and Daman were allowed to remain under the Portuguese; and Danda-Rájapuri (Jinjira) was made over to the Nizámsháhi (A.D. 1490-1595) rulers of the Dakhan Ahmednagar. Of the remaining sixteen, Sirohi, Dungarpur, and Bánsváda now in Rájputána, Kachh, Sûnth in Rewa Kántha, and Rámnagar (Dharampur) in Surat were, on the payment of tribute, allowed to continue in the hands of their Hindu rulers. The ten remaining districts were administered directly by imperial officers. But as the revenues of the district of Surat had been separately assigned to its revenue officer or mutasaddi, only nine districts with 184 sub-divisions or parganáhs were entered in the collections from the viceroy of Gujarát. These nine districts were in continental Gujarát, Pátan with seventeen sub-divisions, Áhmedábád with thirty-three, Godhra with eleven, Chámpáner with thirteen, Baroda with four, Broach with fourteen, and Rájpipla (Nándod) with twelve. In the peninsula were Sorath with sixty-two and Navánagar with seventeen sub-divisions. This lessening of area seems to have been accompanied by even more than a corresponding reduction in the state demand. Instead of £5,840,050 (Rs. 5,84,00,500), the revenue recovered in A.D. 1571, two years before the province was annexed, under the arrangement introduced by the emperor Akbar, the total amount, including the receipts from Surat and the tribute of the six feudatory districts, is returned at £1,999,113 (Rs. 1,99,91,130) or little more than one-third part of what was formerly collected. [705]

According to the Mirat-i-Áhmedi this revenue of £1,999,113 (Rs. 1,99,91,130) continued to be realised as late as the reign of Muhammad Sháh (A.D. 1719-1748). But within the next twelve years (A.D. 1748-1762) the whole revenue had fallen to £1,235,000 (Rs. 1,23,50,000). Of £1,999,113 (Rs. 1,99,91,130), the total amount levied by Akbar on the annexation of the province, £520,501 (Rs. 52,05,010), or a little more than a quarter, were set apart for imperial use and royal expense; £55,000 (Rs. 5,50,000) were assigned for the support of the viceroy and the personal estates of the nobles, and the remainder was settled for the pay of other officers of rank and court officials. Nearly £30,000 (Rs. 3,00,000) were given away as rewards and pensions to religious orders and establishments. [706]

Besides lightening the state demand the emperor Akbar introduced three improvements: (1) The survey of the land; (2) The payment of the headmen or mukaddams of government villages; and (3) The restoration to small superior landholders of the share they formerly enjoyed in the lands of government villages. The survey which was entrusted to Rája Todar Mal, the revenue minister of the empire, was completed in A.D. 1575. The operations were confined to a small portion of the whole area of the province. Besides the six tributary districts which were unaffected by the measure, Godhra in the east, the western peninsula, and a large portion of the central strip of directly governed lands were excluded, so that of the 184 sub-divisions only 64 were surveyed. In A.D. 1575, of 7,261,849 acres (12,360,594 bighás), the whole area measured, 4,920,818 acres (8,374,498 bighás) or about two-thirds were found to be fit for cultivation, and the remainder was waste. In those parts of the directly governed districts where the land was not measured the existing method of determining the government share of the produce either by selecting a portion of the field while the crop was still standing, or by dividing the grain heap at harvest time, was continued. In surveyed districts the amount paid was determined by the area and character of the land under cultivation. Payment was made either in grain or in money, according to the instructions issued to the revenue-collectors, 'that when it would not prove oppressive the value of the grain should be taken in ready money at the market price.' [707] The chief change in the revenue management was that, instead of each year calculating the government share from the character of the crop, an uniform demand was fixed to run for a term of ten years.

Another important effect of this survey was to extend to cultivators in simple villages the proprietary interest in the soil formerly enjoyed only by the shareholders of joint villages. By this change the power of the military nobles to make undue exactions from the cultivators in their assigned lands was to some extent checked. It was, perhaps, also an indirect effect of this more definite settlement of the crown demand that the revenue agents of government and of the holders of assigned lands, finding that the revenues could be realised without their help, refused to allow to the heads of villages certain revenue dues which, in return for their services, they had hitherto enjoyed. Accordingly, in A.D. 1589-90, these heads of villages appealed to government and Akbar decided that in assigned districts as well as in the crown domains from the collections of government lands two-and-a-half per cent should be set apart as a perquisite for men of this class. [708]

When the heads of villages laid their own private grievance before government, they also brought to its notice that the Koli and Rájput landowners, whose shares in government villages had been resumed by the crown in A.D. 1545, had since that time continued in a state of discontent and revolt and were then causing the ruin of the subjects and a deficiency in the government collections. An inquiry was instituted, and, to satisfy the claims of landowners of this class, it was agreed that, on furnishing good security for their conduct and receiving the government mark on their contingent of cavalry, they should again be put in possession of a one-fourth share of the land of government villages. While the province was managed agreeably to these regulations, says the author of the Mirat-i-Áhmedi, its prosperity continued to increase. [709]

Though these measures did much to check internal disorder, Gujarát, for several years after it came under Mughal control, continued disturbed by insurrections among the nobles, and so imperfectly protected from the attacks of foreign enemies that between the years A.D. 1573 and 1609 each of its three richest cities, Áhmedábád Cambay and Surat, was in turn taken and plundered. [710] During the rest of the seventeenth century, though the country was from time to time disturbed by Koli and Rájput risings, and towards the end of the century suffered much from the raids of the Maráthás, the viceroys were, on the whole, able to maintain their authority, repressing the outbreaks of the disorderly classes, and enforcing the imperial claims for tribute on the more independent feudatory chiefs. Throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century the general state of the province seems to have been prosperous. Its cities were the wonder of European travellers. Surat, which only since the transfer of Gujarát to the Mughal empire had risen to hold a place among its chief centres of trade, was, in A.D. 1664, when taken by Shiváji, rich enough to supply him with plunder in treasure and precious stones worth a million sterling [711]; and at that time Cambay is said to have been beyond comparison greater than Surat, and Áhmedábád much richer and more populous than either. [712]

From the beginning of the eighteenth century disorder increased. Unable to rely for support on the imperial court, the viceroys failed to maintain order among the leading nobles, or to enforce their tribute from the more powerful feudatories. And while the small Koli and Rájput landholders, freed from the control of a strong central power, were destroying the military posts, taking possession of the state share of village lands, and levying dues from their more peaceful neighbours, the burden of the Marátha tribute was year by year growing heavier. During the last ten years of Musalmán rule so entirely did the viceroy's authority forsake him, that, according to the author of the Mirat-i-Áhmedi, when the great landholders refused to pay their tribute, the viceroy had no power to enforce payment. And so faithless had the great landowners become that the viceroy could not pass the city gate without an escort. [713]

The above summary contains frequent references to three classes of zamíndárs: (1) The zamíndárs of the self-governed states; (2) The greater zamíndárs of the crown districts; and (3) The lesser zamíndárs of the crown districts.

[Self-governed Zamíndárs.] In the case of the zamíndárs of self-governed states the principle was military service and no tribute. The author of the Mirat-i-Áhmedi says that finally the zamíndárs of the self-governed states ceased to do service. In spite of this statement it seems probable that some of this class served almost until the complete collapse of the empire, and that tribute was rarely levied from them by an armed force. In the Mirat-i-Áhmedi account of the office of súbahdár or názim sûbah the following passage occurs: When occasion arose the názims used to take with their armies the contingents of the Ránás of Udepur Dúngarpur and Bánsváda, which were always permanently posted outside their official residences (in Áhmedábád). This shows that these great zamíndárs had official residences at the capital, where probably their contingents were posted under wakíls or agents. It therefore seems probable that their tribute too would be paid through their representatives at the capital and that a military force was seldom sent against them. Accordingly notices of military expeditions in the tributary sarkárs are rare though they were of constant occurrence in the crown districts.

[Crown Zamíndárs.] The position of the zamíndárs of the khálsa or crown districts was very different from that of the zamíndárs of self-governed territories. The khálsa zamíndárs had been deprived of the greater portion of their ancestral estates which were administered by the viceregal revenue establishment. In some instances their capitals had been annexed. Even if not annexed the capital was the seat of faujdár who possessed the authority and encroached daily on the rights and privileges of the chieftain. The principal chiefs in this position were those of Rájpípla and Ídar in Gujarát and the Jám of Navánagar in Káthiáváda. Of the three, Rájpipla had been deprived of his capital Nándod and of all the fertile districts, and was reduced to a barren sovereignty over rocks, hills and Bhíls at Rájpípla. Ídar had suffered similar treatment and the capital was the seat of a Muhammadan faujdár. Navánagar, which had hitherto been a tributary sarkár, was during the reign of Aurangzíb made a crown district. But after Aurangzíb's death the Jám returned to his capital and again resumed his tributary relations.

[Smaller Zamíndárs.] The lesser holders, including grásiás wántádárs and others, had suffered similar deprivation of lands and were subject to much encroachment from the government officials. Throughout the empire widespread discontent prevailed among subordinate holders of this description as well as among all the zamíndárs of the crown districts, so that the successes of Shiváji in the Dakhan found ardent sympathisers even in Gujarát. When the zamíndárs saw that this Hindu rebel was strong enough to pillage Surat they began to hope that a day of deliverance was near. The death of Aurangzíb (A.D. 1707) was the signal for these restless spirits to bestir themselves. When the Maráthás began regular inroads they were hailed as deliverers from the yoke of the Mughal. The Rájpípla chief afforded them shelter and a passage through his country. The encouragement to anarchy given by some of the Rájput viceroys who were anxious to emancipate themselves from the central control further enabled many chieftains girásiás and others to absorb large portions of the crown domains, and even to recover their ancient capitals. Finally disaffected Muhammadan faujdárs succeeded in building up estates out of the possessions of the crown and founding the families which most of the present Muhammadan chieftains of Gujarát represent.

[Marátha Ascendancy, 1760-1802.] When the imperial power had been usurped by the Marátha leaders, the chiefs who had just shaken off the more powerful Mughal yoke were by no means disposed tamely to submit to Marátha domination. Every chief resisted the levy of tribute and Momín Khán reconquered Áhmedábád. In this struggle the Maráthás laboured under the disadvantage of dissensions between the Peshwa and the Gáikwár. They were also unaware of the actual extent of the old imperial domain and were ignorant of the amount of tribute formerly levied. They found that the faujdárs, who, in return for Marátha aid in enabling them to absorb the crown parganáhs, had agreed to pay tribute, now joined the zamíndárs in resisting Marátha demands, while with few exceptions the desáis and majmudárs either openly allied themselves with the zamíndárs or were by force or fraud deprived of their records. [Gáikwár Saved by British Alliance, 1802.] So serious were the obstacles to the collection of the Marátha tribute that, had it not been for the British alliance in A.D. 1802, there seems little doubt that the Gáikwár would have been unable to enforce his demands in his more distant possessions. The British alliance checked the disintegration of the Gáikwár's power, and the permanent settlement of the tribute early in this century enabled that chief to collect a large revenue at a comparatively trifling cost. Not only were rebels like Malhárráo and Kánoji suppressed, but powerful servants like Vithalráv Deváji, who without doubt would have asserted their independence, were confirmed in their allegiance and the rich possessions they had acquired became part of the Gáikwár's dominions.

[Power of Chiefs.] It must not be supposed that while the larger chiefs were busy absorbing whole parganáhs the lesser chiefs were more backward. They too annexed villages and even Mughal posts or thánáhs, while wántádárs or sharers absorbed the talpat or state portion, and, under the name of tora garás, [714] daring spirits imposed certain rights over crown villages once their ancient possessions, or, under the name of pál or vol, enforced from neighbouring villages payments to secure immunity from pillage. Even in the Baroda district of the thirteen Mughal posts only ten now belong to the Gáikwár, two having been conquered by girásiás and one having fallen under Broach. In Sauráshtra except Ránpur and Gogha and those in the Amreli district, not a single Mughal post is in the possession either of the British Government or of the Gáikwár. A reference to the Mughal posts in other parts of Gujarát shows that the same result followed the collapse of Musalmán power.

[Power of Local Chiefs.] Since the introduction of Musalmán rule in A.D. 1297 each successive government has been subverted by the ambition of the nobles and the disaffection of the chiefs. It was thus that the Gujarát Sultáns rendered themselves independent of Dehli. It was thus that the Sultán's territories became divided among the nobles, whose dissensions reduced the province to Akbar's authority. It was thus that the chiefs and local governors, conniving at Marátha inroads, subverted Mughal rule. Finally it was thus that the Gáikwár lost his hold of his possessions and was rescued from ruin solely by the power of the British.

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I. EARLY MUSALMÁN GOVERNORS

A.D. 1297-1403.

[Alá-ud-dín Khilji Emperor, 1295-1315.] Except the great expedition of Mahmúd Ghaznawi against Somnáth in A.D. 1024 [715]; the defeat of Muhammad Muiz-ud-dín or Shaháb-ud-dín Ghori by Bhím Dev II. of Anahilaváda about A.D. 1178 [716]; and the avenging sack of Anahilaváda and defeat of Bhím by Kutb-ud-dín Eibak in A.D. 1194, until the reign of Alá-ud-dín Khilji in A.D. 1295-1315, Gujarát remained free from Muhammadan interference. [717] [Ulugh Khán, 1297-1317.] In A.D. 1297, Ulugh Khán, general of Alá-ud-dín and Nasrat Khán Wazír were sent against Anahilaváda. They took the city expelling Karan Wághela, usually called Ghelo The Mad, who took refuge at Devgadh with Rámdeva the Yádav sovereign of the north Dakhan. [718] They next seized Khambát (the modern Cambay), and, after appointing a local governor, returned to Dehli. From this time Gujarát remained under Muhammadan power, and Ulugh Khán, a man of great energy, by repeated expeditions consolidated the conquest and established Muhammadan rule. The Kánaddeva Rása says that he plundered Somnáth, and there is no doubt that he conquered Jhálor (the ancient Jhálindar) from the Songarha Choháns. [719] After Ulugh Khán had governed Gujarát for about twenty years, at the instigation of Malik Káfur, he was recalled and put to death by the emperor Alá-ud-dín. [720]

[Ain-ul-Mulk Governor, 1318.] Ulugh Khán's departure shook Muhammadan power in Gujarát, and Kamál-ud-dín, whom Mubárak Khilji sent to quell the disturbances, was slain in battle. Sedition spread till Ain-ul-Mulk Multáni arrived with a powerful army, defeated the rebels and [Order Established, 1318.] restored order. He was succeeded by Zafar Khán, who after completing the subjection of the country was recalled, and his place supplied by Hisám-ud-dín Parmár. [721] This officer, showing treasonable intentions, was imprisoned and succeeded by Malik Wájid-ud-dín Kuraishi, who was afterwards ennobled by the title of Táj or Sadr-ul-Mulk. Khusraw Khán Parmár was then appointed governor, but it is not clear whether he ever joined his appointment. The next governor to whom reference is made is [Táj-ul-Mulk Governor, 1320.] Táj-ul-Mulk, who about A.D. 1320, was, for the second time, chosen as governor by Sultán Ghiás-ud-dín Tughlak. He was succeeded by Malik Mukbil, who held the titles of Khán Jahán and Náib-i-Mukhtár, and who was appointed by [Muhammad Tughlak Emperor, 1325-1351.] Sultán Muhammad Tughlak, A.D. 1325-1351. Subsequently the same emperor granted the government of Gujarát to Áhmad Ayáz, Malik Mukbil continuing to act as his deputy. Afterwards when Áhmad Ayáz, who received the title of Khwájah Jahán, proceeded as governor to Gujarát, Malik Mukbil acted as his minister. And about A.D. 1338, when Khwájah Jahán was sent against the emperor's nephew Karshásp and the Rája of Kampila [722] who had sheltered him, Malik Mukbil succeeded to the post of governor. On one occasion between Baroda and Dabhoi Malik Mukbil, who was escorting treasure and a caravan of merchants to Dehli, was plundered by some bands of the Amíráni Sadah or Captains of Hundreds freelances and freebooters, most of them New Musalmáns or Mughal converts, and the rest Turk and Afghán adventurers. This success emboldened these banditti and for several years they caused loss and confusion in Gujarát. At last, about A.D. 1346, being joined by certain Muhammadan nobles and Hindu chieftains, they broke into open rebellion and defeated one Ázíz, who was appointed by the emperor to march against them. [The Emperor Quells an Insurrection, 1347.] In the following year, A.D. 1347, Muhammad Tughlak, advancing in person, defeated the rebels, and sacked the towns of Cambay and Surat. During the same campaign he drove the Gohil chief Mokheráji out of his stronghold on Piram Island near Gogha on the Gulf of Cambay, and then, landing his forces, after a stubborn conflict, defeated the Gohils, killing Mokheráji and capturing Gogha. Afterwards Muhammad Tughlak left for Daulatábád in the Dakhan, and in his absence the chiefs and nobles under Malik Túghán, a leader of the Amíráni Sadah, again rebelled, and, obtaining possession of Pátan, imprisoned Muîzz-ud-dín the viceroy. The insurgents then plundered Cambay, and afterwards laid siege to Broach. Muhammad Tughlak at once marched for Gujarát and relieved Broach, Malik Túghán retreating to Cambay, whither he was followed by Malik Yúsuf, whom the emperor sent in pursuit of him. In the battle that ensued near Cambay, Malik Yúsuf was defeated and slain, and all the prisoners, both of this engagement and those who had been previously captured, were put to death by Malik Túghán. Among the prisoners was Muîzz-ud-dín, the governor of Gujarát. Muhammad Tughlak now marched to Cambay in person, whence Malik Túghán retreated to Pátan, pursued by the emperor, who was forced by stress of weather to halt at Asáwal. [723] Eventually the emperor came up with Malik Túghán near Kadi and gained a complete victory, Malik Túghán fleeing to Thatha in Sindh. [Subdues Girnár and Kachh, 1350.] To establish order throughout Gujarát Muhammad Tughlak marched against Girnár, [724] reduced the fortress, [725] and levied tribute from the chief named Khengár. He then went to Kachh, and after subduing that country returned to Sorath. At Gondal he contracted a fever, and before he was entirely recovered, he advanced through Kachh into Sindh with the view of subduing the Sumra chief of Thatha, who had sheltered Malik Túghán. Before reaching Thatha he succumbed to the fever, and died in the spring of A.D. 1351. Shortly before his death he appointed Nizám-ul-Mulk to the government of Gujarát.

[Fírúz Tughlak Emperor, 1351-1388.] In A.D. 1351, Fírúz Tughlak succeeded Muhammad Tughlak on the throne of Dehli. Shortly after his accession the emperor marched to Sindh and sent a force against Malik Túghán. About A.D. 1360 he again advanced to Sindh against Jám Bábunia. From Sindh he proceeded to Gujarát, where he stayed for some months. [Zafar Khan Governor, 1371.] Next year, on leaving for Sindh for the third time, he bestowed the government of Gujarát on Zafar Khán in place of Nizám-ul-Mulk. On Zafar Khán's death, in A.D. 1373 according to Farishtah and A.D. 1371 according to the Mirat-i-Áhmedi, he was succeeded by his son Daryá Khán who appears to have governed by a deputy named Shams-ud-dín Anwar Khán. In A.D. 1376, besides presents of elephants horses and other valuables, one Shams-ud-dín Dámghání offered a considerable advance on the usual collections from Gujarát. As Daryá Khán would not agree to pay this sum he was displaced and Shams-ud-dín Dámghání was appointed governor. Finding himself unable to pay the stipulated amount this officer rebelled and withheld the revenue. Fírúz Tughlak sent an army against him, and by the aid of the chieftains and people, whom he had greatly oppressed, Shams-ud-dín was slain. The government of the province was then entrusted to Farhat-ul-Mulk Rásti Khán. [Farhat-ul-Mulk Governor, 1376-1391.] In about A.D. 1388, a noble named Sikandar Khán was sent to supersede Farhat-ul-Mulk, but was defeated and slain by him. As the emperor Fírúz Tughlak died shortly after no notice was taken of Farhat-ul-Mulk's conduct and in the short reign of Fírúz's successor Ghiás-ud-dín Tughlak, no change was made in the government of Gujarát. During the brief rule of Abu Bakr, Farhat-ul-Mulk continued undisturbed. [Muhammad Tughlak II. Emperor, 1391-1393.] But in A.D. 1391, on the accession of Násir-ud-dín Muhammad Tughlak II., a noble of the name of Zafar Khán was appointed governor of Gujarát, and despatched with an army to recall or, if necessary, expel Farhat-ul-Mulk.

This Zafar Khán was the son of Wajíh-ul-Mulk, of the Tánk tribe of Rájputs who claim to be of Suryavansi descent and together with the Gurjjaras appear from very early times to have inhabited the plains of the Punjáb. Of Wajíh-ul-Mulk's rise to power at the Dehli court the following story is told. Before he sat on the throne of Dehli, Fírúz Tughlak, when hunting in the Punjáb, lost his way and came to a village near Thánesar, held by chieftains of the Tánk tribe. He was hospitably entertained by two brothers of the chief's family named Sáháran and Sádhu, and became enamoured of their beautiful sister. When his hosts learned who the stranger was, they gave him their sister in marriage and followed his fortunes. Afterwards Fírúz persuading them to embrace Islám, conferred on Saháran the title of Wajíh-ul-Mulk, and on Sádhu the title of Shamshír Khán. Finally, in A.D. 1351, when Fírúz Tughlak ascended the throne, he made Shamshír Khán and Zafar Khán, the son of Wajíh-ul-Mulk, his cup-bearers, and raised them to the rank of nobles.

[Zafar Khán Governor, 1391-1403.] In A.D. 1391, on being appointed viceroy, Zafar Khán marched without delay for Gujarát. In passing Nágor [726] he was met by a deputation from Cambay, complaining of the tyranny of Rásti Khán. Consoling them, he proceeded to Pátan, the seat of government, and thence marched against Rásti Khán. [Battle of Jitpur; Farhat-ul-Mulk Slain, 1391.] The armies met near the village of Khambhoi, [727] a dependency of Pátan, and Farhat-ul-Mulk Rásti Khán was slain and his army defeated. To commemorate the victory, Zafar Khán founded a village on the battle-field, which he named Jítpur (the city of victory), and then, starting for Cambay, redressed the grievances of the people.

[Zafar Khán Attacks Ídar, 1393.] Zafar Khán's first warlike expedition was against the Ráv of Ídar, [728] who, in A.D. 1393, had refused to pay the customary tribute, and this chief he humbled. The contemporary histories seem to show that the previous governors had recovered tribute from all or most of the chiefs of Gujarát except from the Ráv of Junágadh [729] and the Rája of Rájpípla, [730] who had retained their independence. Zafar Khán now planned an expedition against the celebrated Hindu shrine of Somnáth, but, hearing that Ádil Khán of Ásír-Burhánpur had invaded Sultánpur and Nandurbár, [731] he moved his troops in that direction, and Ádil Khán retired to Ásir. [732] [Exacts Tribute from Junágadh, 1394.] In A.D. 1394, he marched against the Ráv of Junágadh and exacted tribute. Afterwards, proceeding to Somnáth, he destroyed the temple, built an Assembly Mosque, introduced Islám, left Musalmán law officers, and established a thána or post in the city of Pátan Somnáth or Deva Pátan. He now heard that the Hindus of Mándu [733] were oppressing the Muslims, and, accordingly, marching thither, he beleaguered that fortress for a year, but failing to take it contented himself with accepting the excuses of the Rája. From Mándu he performed a pilgrimage to Ajmír. [734] Here he proceeded against the chiefs of Sámbhar and Dandwána, and then attacking the Rájputs of Delváda and Jháláváda, [735] he defeated them, and returned to Pátan in A.D. 1396. About this time his son Tátár Khán, leaving his baggage in the fort of Pánipat, [736] made an attempt on Dehli. But Ikbál Khán took the fort of Pánipat, captured Tátár Khán's baggage, and forced him to withdraw to Gujarát. [Lays Siege to Ídar Fort, 1397.] In A.D. 1397, with the view of reducing Ídar, Zafar Khán besieged the fort, laying waste the neighbouring country. Before he had taken the fort Zafar Khán received news of Timúr's conquests, and concluding a peace with the Ídar Rája, returned to Pátan. [737] In A.D. 1398, hearing that the Somnáth people claimed independence, Zafar Khán led an army against them, defeated them, and [Establishes Islám at Somnáth, 1398.] established Islám on a firm footing.

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