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100
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(APRIL, 1885
950-75; but, according to the Sârnáth inscription, in A.D. 1026, Mahipala of the Bihår (and Bengal) line is in possession of Benares. The latter therefore must have changed bands in the interval. This must have occurred in the "troublous times," when the Chedi kings conquered Kananj, while the Palas (allied to them by marriage) conquered Benares.
I imagine the events to have occurred thns. Towards the end of the tenth century the Kalachuris and the Palas, being allied, attacked the kingdom of Kanaaj from the south and east; the former took Kanaaj, the latter Benares; for Jayapala, the father of Vigraba- påla, is recorded to have conquered Allahabad." While the direct descendants of Mahipala continued to rule the Bihar and Bengal king- dom, including Benares,--one of his younger sons, Chandra Deva, obtained for himself the kingdom of Kanaaj, from the Kalachuri king Karņa, and founded a new dynasty in Kananj, which henceforth took from him its special name Chandra, in order, perhaps, to distinguish itself from the original stock of Palas. Hence Vigrahapala and Mahipala, though named as the ancestors of Chandra Deva, are never incladed in the royal list of Kanauj.
But further, the Basahi plate of Samvat 1161 distinctly states, that Mahipala and Chandra Deva were of the Gaharwâr race of Rajputs." The same statement occurs in the land-grant, published in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Proceedings for 1876, p. 130. So far as I am aware, it does not occur in any of the land-grants of the Rithor kings of Kanauj, except these two. In all the other grants, I think, no information whatever is given regarding the particular Rajput clan to which the kings professed to belong. The Rathor clan is not mentioned in any of them. It has always been taken for granted that the kings of Kananj were of the Rathor clan. For this notion there appears to be no other ground than the tradition of the Råthor princes of Jodhpur in Marwar, who affirm that Sivajl, their ancestor, was a son of a child of Jaya Chandra of Kananj. Now Jaya Chandra is
- Jour. Beng. As. Soc. Vol. XLVII. Part I. p. 884. "The name is spelt es gihadawila in the granta; the modern spelling is TET gahar'wdr or (usually) TETETT gahar'wir. See Elliot's Races of the N. W. Provinces, Vol. I. p. 121.
(This is the way in which it has become customary to
a historical personage; he was the last of the Kanaaj kings, who fell in battle with Shababu'd-din Ghori, as testified by contemporary Mohammadan historians." Sivaji also is a historical personage, a real ancestor of the Marwar Rathor house. The connecting link between Sivaji and Jaya Chandra is a child, otherwise unknown, who is said to have escaped the wreck of his father's house and reign. History, I believe, knows nothing about him; and the tradition about him suspiciously resembles similar traditions of princely houses, who claim ancient descent by the agency of some mysteriously born or preserved child. In any case, if the tradition is correct, it fails to account for the remarkable fact, how a family which was originally Gaharwar, as stated in their own grants, turned into Rathors. In a matter of this kind the evidence of a contemporary land. grant is of more value than a tradition. Bat, in fact, the traditions, confused and sometimes contradictory as they are, rather support the theory here put forward. It is said that "the Gaharwårs are of the same family as the Rathors, with whom they deem themselvos on an equality and with whom it is said they never intermarry." The last statement, however, is only partially true. It does not appear that the modern Ráthors can be traced further back than the Kananj family; and Colonel Tod says that a doubt hangs over the origin of the Rathor race; by the bards they are held to be descendants of Kasyapa." In reference to the latter point, it may be noticed that the Gahaswârs are of the Kalyapa gotra or order; though the Rathors now profess to .be of the Sandilya gotra. All these circumstances point to the conclusion that the so-called Rathors were an offshoot of the Gabarwårs; and it may well be that about the time of Mahîpála a separation took place in the Gaharwår clan, possibly on religious grounds for the PÅlas professed Buddhism, while the Chandras were Brahmaņists. The separation was marked by the secession of the latter to Kadauj, and by change in their nomenclature (Chandra and Rathor, for Pdla and Gaharwår). "The write his name. But, in the inscriptions, it is written Jayachchandra (Jayach Chandra).--compounded of jayat and chandra, not jaya and chandra.-ED.)
See Major Kaverty's Translation of the Tabaq.t-1. Nazirl, p. 470.
See hia Rajasthan, Vol. I. p. 88. (Reprint, pp. 67, 68.)
