Mewar: Origin of the Rajputs
This page is an extract from OR THE CENTRAL AND WESTERN By Edited with an Introduction and Notes by In Three Volumes HUMPHREY MILFORD |
Note: This article is likely to contain several spelling mistakes that occurred during scanning. If these errors are reported as messages to the Facebook page, Indpaedia.com your help will be gratefully acknowledged.
Origin of the Rajputs
In every age and clime we observe the same eager desire after distinguished pedigree, proceeding from a feeling which, though often derided, is extremely natural. The Rajaputras are, however, scarcely satisfied with discriminating their ancestors from the herd of mankind. Some plume them selves on a celestial origin, whilst others are content to be demi celestial ; and those who cannot advance such lofty claims, rather than acknowledge the race to have originated in the ordinary course of nature, make their primeval parent of demoniac extraction ; accordingly, several of the dynasties who cannot obtain a niche amongst the children of the sim or moon, or trace their descent from some royal saint, are satisfied to be considered the offspring of some Titan {Daily a). These puerilities are of modern fabrication, in cases where family documents have been ost, or emigration has severed branches from the parent stock ;' who, increasing in power, but ignorant of their birth, have had recourse to fable to supply the void. Various authors, borrowing from the same source, have assigned the seat of Porus to the Rana's family ; and coincidence of name has been the cause of the family being alternately elevated and depressed. Thus the incidental circumstance of the word Rhamnae being found in Ptolemy's geography, in countries bordering on Mewar, furnishes our ablest geographers 1 with a reason [213] for planting the family there in the second century ; while the commentators ^ on the geography of the Arabian travellers of the ninth and tenth centuries ' discover sufficient evidence in " the kingdom of Rahun, always at war with the Balhara sovereign," to consider him (not withstanding Rahun is expressly stated " not to be much con sidered for his birth or the antiquity of his kingdom ") as the prince of Chitor, celebrated in both these points.
The translator of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, following D'Anville, makes Ozene (Ujjain) the capital of a Porus,^ who sent an embassy to Augustus to regulate their commercial intercourse, and whom he asserts to be the ancestor of the Rana. But to show how guarded we should be in admitting verbal resemblance to decide such points, the title of Rana is of modern adoption, even so late as the twelfth century ; and was assumed in conse quence of the victorious issue of a contest with the Parihara prince of Mandor, who bore the title of Rana, and who surrendered it with his life and capital to the prince of Mewar. The latter substituted it for the more ancient appellation of Rawal ; ^ but it was not till the thirteenth century that the novel distinction was generally recognized by neighbouring powers. Although we
1 D'Anville and Rennell. [The Rhamnae have been identified with the Brahui of Baluchistan (McCrindle, Ptolemy, 159). Lassen places them on the Nerbudda.]
2 Maurice and others.
3 Relations anciennes des voyageurs, par Renaudot.
4 D'Anville {Antiquites de I'Inde) quotes Nicolas of Damascus as his authority, who says the letter written by Porus, prince of Ozene, was in the Greek character.
5 This Porus is a corruption of Puar, once the most powerful and con spicuous tribe in India ; classically written Pramara, the dynasty which ruled at Ujjain for ages. [This is not certain (Smith, EHI, 60, note).]
6 Rawed, or Raul, is yet borne as a princely title by the Aharya prince of Dungarpur, and the Yadu prince of Jaisalmer, whose ancestors long ruled in the heart of Scjrthia. Raoul seems to have been titular to the Scandi navian chiefs of Scythic" origin. The invader of Normandy was Raoul, corrupted to Rollon or Rollo. [The words, of course, have no connexion : Rawal, Skt. rajakula, ' royal family.']
cannot for a moment admit the Rahun, or even the Rhamnae of Ozene, to be connected with this family, yet Ptolemy appears to have given the real ancestor in his Baleokouroi, the Balhara monarchs of the Arabian travellers, the Valabhiraes of Saurashtra, who were the ancestors of the princes of Mewar. Before we proceed, it is necessary to specify the sources whence materials were obtained for the Annals of Mewar, and to give some idea of the character they merit as historical data [214].
