Indian Antiquary Vol 48

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 108

104
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
war with the Gujarat Sultanat and the beginning of the struggle with the Sultans of Malwa. The fifth chapter is of engrossing interest as it deals with the end of Rathor influence in Mewar and with the conquest of Marwar by the Mahârânâs. The next chapter deals with the struggles of Rao Jodha, the founder of Jodhpur, for independence and the creation of the State of Jodhpur. Of much greater importance is the chapter on the long wars of Kumbha with the Sultans of Malwa and Gujarat. Here, for the first time, we find the chronicles of the Muhammadan historians checked and refuted by contempoiary Hindu evidence. From the raids of the freebooters of Samana on the Hindu inhabitants of Kabul and Balkh in the 10th century A.D. to the death of Aurangzeb, the chronicles of Musalman historians appear to be an unbroken list of victories for Islam. Checks and defeats have been carefully censored and erased from historical works in Persian. The estimation of the proper value of a history or chronicle written by a Musalman dealing with wars between the true believer and the infidel has been a long and difficult process. The absence of contemporary Hindu evidence and the rarity of corroborative evidence has made the process a very tedious one. But in the long run a true estimate of the value of Muhammadan historical works has been formed in Northern India. In Rajputana the process is much easier. Mr. Sarda, with the true critical spirit, declares the battle of Mandalgarh to be indecisive (p. 48), and refutes Ferishta's claim for a victory for Mahmud Shah II of Malwa by producing contemporary evidence which proves the contrary. Similarly Ferishta's claim for a victory in 1446 has been ably refuted by Mr. Sarda in a long footnote, where Muhammad Kasim's favourite lies have been very neatly exposed (p. 49). So far as my knowledge goes, this is the first time that the lies, inaccuracies, and deliberate mis-statements of this bigoted chronicler, who is relied on by the majority of European historians, are being exposed. Ferishta's claim for a victory for the Sultan of Gujarat and a war indemnity of fourteen maunds of gold received by him has been very ably dealt with on pp. 60-61. So much so that the next historian of Gujarat will be obliged to change certain well-known features of the history of that State. The eighth chapter deals with Kumbha's murder by the patricide Udâ, and contains a summary of his exploits based upon epigraphical
evidence. The next chapter gives a lucid account
of Rajput Architecture of the period and of monuments erected by Kumbha; the tenth and last chapter gives a summary of Kumbha's literary attainments and describes the works composed by him.
[JUNE, 1919
The second memoir of the series, Maharana Sanga, is a larger work and deals with a shorter period. The opening chapter gives a short sketch of Sanga's character, while the following three chapters contain an excellent summary of the period intervening between the death of Maharâpa Kumbha and the accession of Sângâ. Here the author has shown how the weak rule of Sanga's predecessors led to the dismemberment of the vast dominions of Kumbha and how dissensions among members of the ruling clan led to the weakening of the power of the Mahârânâs of Mewar. In the end of the fifth chapter the author deals with Sanga's first war with the powerful Muhammadan kingdom of Gujarat, and in the succeeding one his first war with the Sultans of Delhi when Ibrahim, the weale successor of Sikandar Lodi, was defeated and forced to fly. A second expedition led by the foremost Afghan leaders met with no better result and the frontiers of Mewar reached those of the Afghan Kingdom of Delhi, incidentally paving the way for the final struggle at Khanua. The seventh chapter deals with the strugglo between the Hindu and Musalman vassals of the kingdom of Malwa which led to its extinction by its powerful neighbours, and Sângâ's victory over and the capture of the person of Sultan Mahmud Khilji
II. The conquest of Malwa brought about a war with the Sultans of Gujarat, which is described in the eighth chapter. The struggle bet woon Mewar and Gujarat is continued in the next two chapters, where the futile count er-expeditions from Gujarat are described.
The most important chapters of the work are those which describe the struggle of Mewar with the incoming foreigner, the Mongols or, as they are called in India, Mughals. The eleventh chapter gives a short description of the earlier adventures of Zahiruddin Muhammad Babar Padshah, and the twelfth gives a succinct summary of the various stages which brought the two important figures of Indian History, Babar and Sângâ, face to face.
The author's detailed description of the events preceding the battle of Khanua and that of the battle itself shows that the Indian method of warfare (dharma-yuddha) was not the proper method in a war with foreigners, and confirms ole of the most prominent conclusions of Indian History, that the fall of Indian Empires has always been due to defection and treachery rather than to weakness and defeat. The thirteenth chapter of the work gives us the first chapter of the history of the struggle between
the Sisodiya and the Chaghatai from a new standpoint, the Rajput or Indian standpoint, which has more or less been systematically ignored by European historiographers.
R. D. BANERJI.