Indian Antiquary Vol 51

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

Page 123

JUNE, 1922]
HISTORY OF THE MERS OF MERWARA
115
The principal authorities on which I have based the following account are :- Elliott's. History of India, Volume 1, Professor Dowson's notes to the same ; Pandit Bhagvanlal's Early History of Gujrat, and the account of the Gujars given in Volume IX of the Bombay Gazetteer. The Rajput annals of Rajpûtânâ and Kathiâwâr also furnish several references to the Mers, which complete and elucidate these accounts, and specially throw light on the subject of the connection of the Mers with the Rajputs.
At some period during the 5th century of the Christian era, when the Persian empire of the Sasanids was being attacked by the White Huns or Ephthalites, and the great hordes of Central Asia were in a state of volcanic flux and turmoil, an upheaval took place in the regions of Northern Persia, on the confines of the ancient kingdoms of Georgia and Media, which resulted in a huge tidal wave of humanity being propelled Eastwards and Southwards toward the Frontiers of India. This Army or horde (urda) was composed mainly of two tribes, the Gurjeras from Gurjistan (Georgia) and the Mihiras from Mihiristân, the land of the Sun, Media. Through the passes of the mountains this flood poured into the Panjab, and its further progress to the South-East being stemmed by the strength of the Hindu Kingdom of the Gupta dynasty established there, it followed the line of least resistance, turned South by the Indus valley, and spread over the deserts of Sind and Western Rajputana. In Sind it encoun. tered the opposition of the great tribe of the Jats, themselves the jetsam of a former horde of Getae, or Goths, who had flooded the country in the same way some three centuries earlier, and were then settled on both sides of the river. The newcomers moved down the Eastern bank, driving the Jats across the river ; and, leaving a large colony of Mihiras to occupy the valley, they passed on into Käthiâwâr. Here the Mihiras appear to have remained, while the Gurjaras moved on and settled in the adjacent province, now know as Gujarât. The name of the former tribe is variously written as Maitraka (belonging to Mitra=Mihira), Mihira, Med or Mand. This varied nomenclature has led to some confusion, and historians have not always recognised the tribe under the various names by which they are mentioned, but the arguments of Pandit Bhagvanlal Indraji have placed it beyond reasonable doubt that the modern Mhairs or Mers of Merwârâ and Kathiâwâr are identical with the Maitrakas or Mihiras of the great migration.
The period of the arrival of the horde of Mers and Gujars (to give them at once the names by which they are now known) was a critical one in the history of Hinduism. The ancient religion of the Brahmans had suffered from centuries of corruption, and had fallen into disrepute; the doctrines of the Reformer Gautama, the Buddha, backed by the authority of the Mauryan emperor Asoka, had swept the country from North to South. But with the Mauryan empire long fallen, and the elevation of the Gupta dynasty, the Brahmans saw an opportunity for recovering their lost supremacy. In the civilised regions of the North and East they were successful ; but in the West they encountered the vigorous opposition of the Jains, who had established themselves in great strength in the Western Kingdoms. By the active proselytism of the Jains on the one side, and the more carnal arguments of slings and arrows employed by the aboriginal Bhils on the other, the ranks of the Rajput Kshatriyas, on whom the Brahmang relied to defend their temporal power, were getting perilously thinned ; and the opportunity of recruiting these ranks, by admitting the warlike strangers from the North to the privileges and responsibilities of the Kshatriya caste, was too obvious to be missed by the astute Brahmans.
3 Early history of Gujrat, Bcm. Gazetteer, Vol. I, Part I, p. 135.