Indian Antiquary Vol 18

SR No.: 032510
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 454
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 345

NOVEMBER, 1889.)
MODERN PANJABI COINS.
323
or against the theories of Messrs. Evans and Keary, - for we now have the advantage of studying a semi-barbarous coinage of precisely the same nature as that which has flourished throughout the East any time these thousand years, side by side with otherwise veriflable historical facts regarding the coiners.
II. HISTORY The Pholkian family of chiefs are Siddhu Jatts and claim, as is usual in the Pañjab, among persons of importance, a Rajpât origin:- in this case from Jaisal, the founder of Jaisalmer in the twelfth century A.D. The descent from Jaisal through Siddhu, the eponymous founder of this now great clan of the Pañjabi Jatts, is legendary in the extreme. However, whatever may have been their origin, the ancestors of the Phůlkian house must have been people of much consideration, for in A.D. 1526 the emperor Babar created the son of Sanghas, the head of the family, a Chaudhari? for services rendered in that year by his father at the battle of Pânipat, where he was killed. The headship or chaudhariyat thus won was confirmed by the emperor Humâyûn on Sanghar's grandson in A.D. 1554, and a hundred years later we find Sanghar's descendant Phal, the direct founder of the Phalktan, succeeding his father in the chaudhariyat about A.D. 1618, and dying as the great Chaudhart Phal in 1652. Phul left six sons — the two eldest of whom we may call the major and the rest the minor sons. From the two major sons, Tilokha and Rama, spring the present great chiefs of the Siddhu Jatts, and from the rest the Jiandan Sardárs and what are called the Landghariâ, or "Minor Branch," Sardârs. All are personages of high standing in the Paõjab. From Tilokha, who succeeded to the chaudhariyat, come the RAJAs of Nabha and Jind, and from Rama the Maharajas of Patiala, the Sardars of Bhadaur (absorbed by Pațiàlâ) and the Malaudh families. At the present day they rank as follows, Patikla, Jind, Nabha, Bhadaur, Malaudh;- but by descent their seniority is Nabha, Jiod, Bhadaus, Patiâlâ, Malaudh, while their originally absolute equality is proved by the fact that the village of Bhai Rů på, founded by Tilökha and Rámå jointly, is still owned in equal shares by all the above chiefs. There are seventeen great Sikh families in all sprung from Chaudhari Phul, and of these three have become "royal" and have still the right to issue their own coinage. It is with these three, Patiala, Jind and Nabha, that we have now to do.
At the present day by far the most powerful of these families is that of Patial, and we will take it first into consideration. Rama, the second son of Phůl as above described, carved out for himself by the sword, after the manner of the time, a small semi-independent territory, and after a turbulent career, was murdered in extreme old age in A.D. 1714. Some 15 years later (A.D. 1729) on the death of his second son, Sabha, his third son, Aiha Singh, came into possession of Rama's residence and petty principality of Hodiana; the eldest son, Dünâ, having obtained another estate, now held by his descendant, the Sardâr 'Atar Singh of Bhadanr From this small beginning, to which he added certain other little territories won by the sword, Alba Singh, in the course of a warlike career, before his death in A.D. 1765, had founded Patiala Town and State, had been a prisoner of Ahmad Shah (in 1762), had then been petted by that monarch, receiving from the Afghan the title of Râjâ (1762), had next destroyed and annexed the great Muhammadan provincial capital of Sarhand or Sirhind, and had finally been created chief of the whole of his district (chalka) by Ahmad Shah. The right to coin given by Ahmad Shah to the Phalklan States was therefore clearly given in his time and the coins depicted
• Sir Lepel Griffin, Bajas of the Paftjdb, p. 9, gives 21 generations between Sanghar (ob. 1526) and Jaisal (ob. 1168), which is an apparent impossibility, and at p. 8 there is a legend to mocount for the birth of Siddhu in " Bijpåt's house."
1 Chief local revenue authority always chosen from among the local magnates.
• It is to be observed that in the genealogy above alluded to wo again got 6 generations in 100 years between Sangbar and Phal, when dates are admitted by the tribe to be vague, and only 8 generations in over 200 years between Chaudharl Phal and the present Maharaja of Patiala, when dates have been accurately recorded.
• Sarhand and is the proper spelling of this word on the coins and in M88., not ay "Sahrind" Mr. Rodgers states, J. A. 8. B., Part I., Vol. LIV., p. 73.