Mewar 05: Alleged Persian extraction of the Ranas
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Mewar 05: Alleged Persian extraction of the Ranas
Connexion of the Ranas with Persia
Historic truth has, in all countries, been sacrificed to national vanity : to its gratification every obstacle is made to give way ; fictions become facts, and even rehgious prejudices vanish in this mirage of the imagination. What but this spurious zeal could for a moment induce any genuine Hindu to believe that, only twelve centuries ago, ' an eater of beef ' occupied the chair of Rama, and enjoyed by univer sal acclaim the title of ' Sun of the Hindus ' ; or that the most ancient dynasty in the world could owe its existence to the last of the Sassanian kings : 3 that a slip from such a tree could be sur reptitiously grafted on that majestic stem, which has flourished from the golden to the iron age, covering the land with its branches ? That there existed a marked affinity in religious rites between the Rana's family and the Guebres, or ancient Persians, is evident. With both, the chief object of adoration was the sun ; each bore the image of the orb on their banners. The chief day in the seven 4 was dedicated to the sun ; to it is
1 Ain, ii. 344 f. 2 [The dates are open to much question. It is known fro:n inscriptions that Sakti Kumar was alive in a.d. 977.] 3 Yezdegird died a.d. 651. 4 Surajwar, or Adityaivar, Sun-day ; and the other days of the week, from the other planets, which Western nations have taken froiH the East. sacred the chief gate of the city, the principal bastion of every fortress. But though the faith of Islam has driven away the fairy inhabitants from the fountains of Mithras, that of Surya has still its devotees on the summit of Chitor, as at Valabhi : and could we trace with accuracy their creeds to a distant age, we might discover them to be of one family, worshipping the sun at the fountains of the Oxus and Jaxartes.
The darkest period of Indian history is during the six centuries following Vikramaditya, which are scarcely enlightened by a ray of knowledge : but India was imdergoing great changes, and foreign tribes were pouring in from the north. To this period, the sixth century, the genealogies of the Puranas are brought down, which expressly declare (adopting the prophetic spirit to conceal [233] the alterations and additions they then underwent) that at this time the genuine line of princes would be extinct, and that a mixed race would rule conjointly with foreign barbarians ; as the Turushka, the Mauna,1 the Yavan,2 the Gorind, and 1 See History of the Tribes, pp. 123, 135, articles ' Takshak,' and ' Jhala,' or Makwahana, in all probability the Mauna of the Puranas [?]. 2 The Yavan, or Greek princes, who apparently continued to rule within the Indus after the Christian era, were either the remains of the Bactrian dynasty or the independent kingdom of Demetrius or Apollodotus, who ruled in the Panjab, having as their capital Sagala, changed by Demetrius to Euthymedia. Bayer says, in his Hist. Reg. Bad., p. 84 : "I find from Claudius Ptolemy, that there was a city within the Hydaspes yet nearer the Indus, called Sagala, also Euthymedia ; but I scarcely doubt that Demetrius called it Euthydemia, from his father, after his death and that of Menander. Demetrius was deprived of his patrimony A.U.C. 562." [The site of Sagala Chiniot, Shahkot, Sialkot {IGI, ii. 80 f. ; McCrindle, Ptolemy, 122 ff.).]
On this ancient city, Sagala, I have already said much ; conjecturing it to be the Salbhanpura of the Yadus when driven from Zabulistan, and that of the Yuoh-chi or Yuti, who were fixed there from Central Asia in the fifth century, and if so early as the second century, when Ptolemy wrote, may have originated the change of Yuti-media, the ' Central Yuti.' The numerous medals which I possess, chiefly found within the probable hunts of the Greek kingdom of Sagala, either belong to these princes or the Parthian kings of Minnagara on the Indus. The legends are in Greek on one side, and in the Sassanian character on the reverse. Hitherto I have not de ciphered the names of any but those of Apollodotus and Menander ; but the titles of ' Great King,' ' Saviour,' and other epithets adopted by the Arsacidae, are perfectly legible. The devices, however, all incline me to pronounce them Parthian. It would be curious to ascertain how these Greeks and Parthians gradually merged into the Hindu population [see IQI, ii. 1.37].
Garddhabin.1 Tliere is much of truth in this ; nor is it to be doubted that many of the Rajput tribes entered India from the north-west regions about this period. Gor and Gardhaba have the same signification ; the first is Persian ; the second its version in Hindi, meaning the ' wild ass,' an appellation of the Persian monarch Bahram, surnamed Gor from his partiality to hunting that animal. Various authorities state Bahramgor being in India in the fifth century, and his having there left progeny by a princess of Kanauj. A passage extracted by the author from an ancient Jain HIS. indicates that " in S. 523 Raja Gardhabela, of Kakustha, or vSuryavansa, ruled in Valabhipura." It has been surmised that Gardhabela was the son of Bahramgor, a son of whom is stated to have obtained dominion at Patau ; which may be borne in mind when the authorities for the Persian extraction of the Rana's family are given.2
The Hindus, when conquered by the Muhammadans, naturally wished to gild the chains they could not break. To trace a common, though distant, origin with the conquerors was to remove some portion of the taint of dishonour which arose from giving their daughters in marriage to the Tatar emperors of Delhi ; and a degree of satisfaction was derived from assuming that the blood thus corrupted once flowed from a common fountain 3 [234]. 1 [The list in the Vishnu Purana (474 f.) gives 7 Abhiras, 10 Garddhabas, 16 Sakas, 14 Tusharas, 13 Mundas, 11 Maunas. On the impossibihty of reducing the Puranic accounts to order see Smith, EHI, 274.] 2 [RawUnson [Seventh Oriental Monarchy, 298) regards the eastern adventure of Bahramgor, Varahran V., as mythical. Sykes [Hist, of Persia, i. 470) thinks they can hardly be authentic, " but I do not reject it as entirely devoid of historical basis."] 3 The Hindu genealogist, in ignorance of the existence of Aghuz Khan, the Tatar patriarch, could not connect the chain of Chagatai with Chandra. The Brahman, better read, sixpplied the defect, and with his doctrine of the metempsychosis animated the material frame of the beneficent Akbar with the ' good genius ' of a Hindu ; and that of their mortal foe, Aurangzeb, with one of evil destiny, being that of Kalayavana, the foe of Krishna. They gravely assert that Akbar visited his ancient hermitage at the conflu ence of the Ganges and Jumna, and excavated the implements of penance used by him in hds former shape, as one of the sages of ancient times ; while such is their aversion to Aurangzeb, that they declare the final avatar, Time (Kal), on his white steed, will appear in his person. The Jaisalmer annals affirm that the whole Turkish (Turushha) race of Chagatai are of Yadu stock ; while the Jam Jareja of Cutch traces his descent from the Persian Jamshid, contemporary with Solomon. These are curious claims, but the Rana's family would consider such vanity criminal. Further to develop these claims of Persian descent, we shall commence with an extract from the Upadesa Prasad, a collection of historic fragments in the Magadhi dialect. " In Gujardes (Gujarat) there are eighty-foiir cities. In one of these, Kaira, resided the Brahman Devaditya, the expounder of the Vedas. He had an only child, Subhaga (of good fortune) by name, at once a maiden and a widow. Having learned from her preceptor the solar incantation, incautiously repeating it, the sun appeared and embraced her, and she thence became pregnant.1
The affliction of her father was diminished when he discovered the parent ; nevertheless [as others might be less charitable] he sent her with a female attendant to Valabhipura, where she was de livered of twins, male and female. When grown up the boy was sent to school ; but being eternally plagued about his mysterious birth, whence he received the nickname of Ghaibi (' concealed '), in a fit of irritation he one day threatened to kill his mother if she refused to disclose the author of his existence. At this moment the sun revealed himself : he gave the youth a pebble, with which it was sufficient to touch his companions in order to overcome them. Being carried before the Balhara prince, who menaced Ghaibi, the latter slew him with the pebble, and became himself sovereign of Saurashtra, taking the name of Siladitya ^ (from sila, ' a stone or pebble,' and adiiya, ' the sun ') : his sister was married to the Raja of Broach." Such is the literal translation of a fragment totally unconnected with the history of the Rana's family, though evidently bearing upon it. The father of Siladitya, according to the Sandrai roll and other authorities of that period, is Suraj (the sun) Rao, though two others make a Somaditya intervene 2 [235].
1 [For legends of woinen impregnated by the sun see Frazer, Golden Bough, Part vii. vol. i. 74 ff.] 2 This is probably the Siladitya of the Satrunjaya Mahatma, who re paired the temple on Satrunjaya in S. 477 (a.d. 421). [A mere folk etymo Siladitya, from sil, ' to worship,' aditya, ' the sun.'] 3 In perusing this fragment we are struck by the similarity of production of these Hindu Hehadae and that of the celebrated Tatar dynasty from which Jenghiz Khan was descended. The Niruns, or ' children of light,' were from an amour of the sun with Alung Goa, from which Jenghiz was the ninth in descent. Authorities quoted by Petis do la Croix, in his Ufe of this con queror, and Hkewise by Marjgny, in his History of the Saracens, afBrm Jenghiz Khan to be a descendant of Yazdegird, the last Sassanian prince. Jenghiz was an idolater, and hated the very name of Muhammadan [see Let us see what Abu-1 Fazl says of the descent of the Ranas from Niishirwan : " The chief of the State was formerly called Rawal, but for a long time past has been known as Rana. He is of the Ghelot clan, and pretends to descent from Noshirwan the Just. An ancestor of this family through the vicissitudes of fortune came to Berar and was distinguished as the chief of Narna lah. About eight himdred years previous to the present time 1 Narnalah was taken by the enemy and many were slain. One Bapa, a child, was carried by his mother from this scene of desola tion to Mewar, and found refuge with Rajah Mandalikh, a Bhil.2
The work which has furnished all the knowledge which exists on the Persian ancestry of the Mewar princes is the Maasiru-l Umara, or that (in the author's possession) founded on it, entitled Bisaiu-l-Ghanim, or 'Display of the Foe,' written in a.h. 1204 3 [a.d. 1789]. The writer of this work styles himself Lachhun Narayan Shafik Aurangabadi, or ' the rhymer of Aurangabad. He professes to give an accomit of Sivaji, the founder of the Mahratta empire ; for which purpose he goes deep into the lineage of the Ranas of Mewar, from whom Sivaji was descended,4 quoting Howorth, Hist, of the Mongols, i. 37 ff.]. A courtier telling Aurangzeb of his celestial ancestry, gravely quoting the affair of the mother of the race of Timur with the sun, the bigoted monarch coarsely replied, " Mama qahba bud," which we will not translate.
1 Akbar commenced his reign a.d. 1556, and had been forty years on the throne when the ' Institutes ' were composed by the Abu-l Fazl. [The translation of Gladwin in the original text has been replaced by that of Jarrett, Ain, ii. 268.] 2 Orme [Historical Fragments, Notes, p. xxii] was acquainted with this passage, and shows his knowledge of the Hindu character by observing that it was a strange pedigree to assign a Hindu prince, for Khusru, of the religion of Zoroaster, though compelled to many abstinences, was not re strained from eating beef : and Anquetil du Perron says of the Parsis, their descendants, that they have refrained since their emigration from slaying the cow merely to please the Hindu.
3 The cryptographic da,te is contained in the numerical value of the letters which compose the title :
B.S. A. T. a. 1. G. N. A. E. M.
2.60. 1. 9. 1. 9. 1000. 50. 1. 10. 40.
As the total is only 1183, either the date is wrong, or a deficient value given to the numerals. 4 WiLford, who by his indefatigable research and knowledge of Sanskrit had accumulated extensive materials, unhappily deteriorated by a too credulous imagination, yet containing much valuable matter available to those sufficiently familiar with the subject to select with safety, has touched on this, and almost on every other point in the circle of Hindu antiquities. at length the Maasiru-l-Umara, from which the following is a literal translation : " It is well known that the Rajas of Udaipur are exalted over all the princes of Hind. Other Hindu princes, before they can succeed to the throne of their fathers, must receive the khushka, or tilak of regality and investiture, from them. This type of sovereignty is received with humility and veneration. The khushka of these princes is made with human blood : their title is Rana, and they deduce [236] their origin from Noshirwan-i-Adil (i.e. the Just), who conquered the countries of -,1 and many parts of Hindustan. During his lifetime his son Noshizad, whose mother was the daughter of Kaiser of Rum,2 quitted the ancient worship and embraced the ' faith 3 of the Christians,' and with numerous followers entered Hindustan. Thence he marched a great army towards Iran, against his father Noshirwan ; who despatched his general, Rambarzin,4 with Ali Ibrahim, a learned native of Benares, was Wilford's authority for assert ing the Rana's Persian descent, who stated to him that he had seen the original history, which was entitled, Origin of the Peishwas from the Ranas of Mewar. (Ibrahim must have meant the Satara princes, whose ministers were the Peshwas.) From this authority three distinct emigrations of the Guebres, or ancient Persians, are recorded, from Persia into Gujarat. The first in the time of Abu Bakr, a.d. 631 ; the second on the defeat of Yazde gird, A.D. 651 ; and the third when the descendants of Abbas began to prevail, A.D. 749. Also that a son of Noshirwan landed near Surat with eighteen thousand of his subjects, from Laristan, and were well received by the prince of the country. Abu-1 Fazl confirms this account by saying, " the followers of Zoroaster, when they fled from Persia, settled in Surat," the contracted term for the peninsular of Saurashtra, as well as the city of this name [Ai7i, ii. 243].
1 The names are obliterated in the original. Ferishta [i. Introd. Ixxix] informs us that Ramdeo Rathor, sovereign of Kananj, was made tributary by Firoz ' Sassan ' ; and that Partap Chand, who usurped the tlvrone of Ramdeo, neglecting to pay this tribute, Noshirwan marched into India to recover it, and in his progress siibdued Kabul and the Panjab. From the striking coincidence of these original and decisive authorities, we may rest assured that they had recourse to ancient records, both of the Guebres and the Hindus, for the basis of their histories, which research may yet discover. 2 Maurice, emperor of Byzantium. [Sykes {Hist, of Persia, ii. 495) calls the son of Nushirwan Nushishad, and mentions his rebellion against his father. There seems to be no evidence that Nushishad reached India : he was slain after he revolted (Malcolm, Hist. Persia, 2nd ed. i. 112 ff.).] 3 Din-i-Tarsar. See Ebn Haukal, art. ' Serir,' or Russia ; whose king, a son of Bahram Chassin, whom he styles a Tersar or Christian, first possessed it about the end of the sixth century. 4 The Ve.rames of Western historians [Malcolm, op. cit. i. 113]. numerous forces to oppose him. An action ensued, in which Noshizad was slain ; but his issue remained in Hindustan, from zvhom are descended the Ranas of Udaipur. Nushirwan had a wife from the Khakhan 1 of China, by whom he had a son called Hormuz, declared heir to the throne shortly before his death. As according to the faith of the fire-worshippers - it is not custom ary either to bury or to burn the dead, but to leave the corpse exposed to the rays of the sun, so it is said the body of Nushirwan has to this day suffered no decay, but is still fresh." I now come to the account of Yazd, " the son of Shahriyar, the son of Khusru Parves, the son of Hormuz, the son of Nush irwan.
" Yazd was the last king of Ajam. It is well known he fought many battles with the IMuhammadans. In the fifteenth year of the caliphat, Rustam, son of P^'erokh, a great chief, was slain in battle by Saad-bin-wakas, who commanded for Omar, which was the death-blow to the fortunes of the house of Sassan : so that a remnant of it did not remain in a.h. 31, when Iran was seized by the Muhammadans. This battle had lasted four days when Rustam Ferokzad was slain by the hand of Hilkal, the son of Al Kumna, at Saad's command [237] ; though Firdausi asserts by Saad himself. Thirty thousand Muslims were slain, and the same number of the men of Ajam. To count the spoils was a torment. During this year (the thirty-first), the sixteenth of the prophet,* the era of the Hegira was introduced. In a.h. 17 Abu Musa of Ashur seized Hormuz, the son of the uncle of Yazdegird, whom he sent with Yazdegird's daughter to Imam Husain, and another daughter to Abubakr.
" Thus far have I 4 extracted from the history of the fire worshippers. He who has a mind to examine these, let him do so. The people of the religion of Zardusht have a full knowledge 1 Khakhan was the title of the kings of Chinese Tartary. It was held by the leader of the Huns, who at this period held power on the Caspian : it was also held by the Urus, Khuzr, Bulgar, Serir, all terms for Russia, before its Kaisar was cut down into Tzar, for the original of which, the kings of Rome, as of Russia, were indebted to the Sanskrit Kesar, a" lion ' [Lat. Caesar] {vide Ibn Haukal, art. ' Khozr '). 2 Din-i-Majusi ; literally, ' faith of the Magi.' 3 Muhammad, born a.d. 578 ; the Hegira, or flight, a.d. 622. 4 It must be borne in mind that it is the author of the Maasiru-l-Umara, not the rhymer of Aurungabad, who is speaking. of all these events, with their dates ; for the pleasure of their lives is the obtaining accounts of antiquity and astronomical knowledge, and their books contain information of two and three thousand years. It is also told, that when the fortunes of Yazde gird were on the wane, his family dispersed to different regions. The second daughter, Shahr Banu, was married to Imam Husain, 1 who, when he fell a martyr (shahid), an angel carried her to heaven. The third daughter, Banu, was seized by a plundering Arab and carried into the wilds of Chichik, thirty coss from Yazd. Praying to God for deliverance, she instantly disap peared ; and the spot is still held sacred by the Parsis, and named ' the secret abode of perfect purity.' Hither, on the twenty sixth of the month Bahman, the Parsis yet repair to pass a month in pilgrimage, living in huts under indigenous vines skirting the rock, out of whose fissures water falls into a fountain below : but if the unclean approach the spring, it ceases to flow.
" Of the eldest daughter of Yazdegird, Maha Banu, the Parsis have no accounts ; but the books of Hind give evidence to her arrival in that country, and that from her issue is the tribe Sesodia. But, at all events, this race is either of the seed of Nushishad, the son of Nushirwan, or of that of the daughter of Yazdegird." 2
Thus have we adduced, perhaps, all the points of evidence for the supposed Persian origin of the Rana's family. The period of the invasion of Saurashtra by Nushishad, who mounted the throne a.d. 531, corresponds well with the sack of Valabhi, a.d. 521 [238]. The army he collected in Laristan to depose his father might have been from the Parthians, Getae, Huns, and other Scythic races then on the Indus, though it is unlikely, with such an object in view as the throne of Persia, that he would waste his strength in Saurashtra. Khusru Parvez, grandson of Nushirwan
1 [This is the Persian tradition (Sykes, op. cit. ii. 44).] 2 For the extract from " The Annals of Princes (Maasiru-l-Umara) " let us laud the memory of the rhymer of Aurungabad. An original copy, which 1 in vain attempted to procure in India, is stated by Sir Wilham Ouseley to be in the British Museum. We owe that country a large debt, for we have robbed her of all her literary treasures, leaving them to sleep on the shelves of our public institutions. [There is no real evidence of the Persian descent of the Ranas, and it has been suggested that the story is based on the fire symbols on the coinage found in Kathiawar and Mewar, these, though in the main Indo-Scythic, betraying from about sixth century a more direct iSassanian influence (BG, i. Part i. 102). At the same time recent discoveries indicate Persian influence in N. India.] the great, and who assumed this title according to Firdausi, married Marian, the daughter of Maurice, the Greek emperor of Byzantium. She bore him Shirauah (the Siroes of the early Christian writers), who slew his father. It is dillicult to separate the actions of the two Nushirwans, and still more to say which of them merited the epithet of adil, or ' just.'
According to the ' Tables ' in Moreri,1 Nushishad, son of Khusru the Great, reigned from a.d. 531 to 591. This is opposed to the Maasiru-l-Umara, which asserts that he was slain during his rebellion. Siroes, son of lOiusru (the second Nushirwan) by his wife Marian, alternately called the friend and foe of the Christians, did raise the standard of revolt, and met the fate attributed to Nushishad ; on which Yazdegird, his nephew, was proclaimed. The crown was intended for Shirauah's yoimger brother, which caused the revolt, during which the elder sought refuge in India. These revolutions in the Sassanian house were certainly simul taneous with those which occurred in the Rana's, and no barrier existed to the political mtercourse at least between the princely worshippers of Surya and Mithras. It is, therefore, curious to speculate even on the possibility of such a pedigree to a family whose ancestry is lost in the mists of time ; and it becomes interesting when, from so many authentic sources, we can raise testimonies which would furnish, to one even untinctured with the love of hypothesis, grounds for giving ancestors to the Ranas in Maurice of Byzantium and Cyrus (Khusru) of Persia [239]. We have a singular support to these historic relics in a geographical fact, that places on the site of the ancient Valabhi a city called Byzantium, which almost affords conclusive proof that it must have been the son of Nushirwan who captured Valabhi and Gajni, and destroyed the family of Siladitya ; for it would be a legitimate occasion to name such conquest after the city where his Christian mother had had birth.- Whichever of the propositions we adopt at the command of the author of The Annals of Princes, namely, " that the Sesodia race is of the seed of Nushishad, son of Nushir wan, or of that of Mahabanu, daughter of Yazdegird," we arrive at a singular and startling conclusion, viz. that the ' Hindua
1 Vide Grand Dictionnaire Historique. 2 [Byzantium cannot have been a Greek colony, the name apparently representing Vijayanta, now Vijayadurga, the southern entrance of the Vaghotan River in Katnagiri (Mecrindle, Polcmy, 47 ; BG, i. Part ii. 174 f.).] Suraj, descendant of a hundred kings,' the luidisputed possessor of the honours of Rama, the patriarch of the Solar race, is the issue of a Christian princess : that the chief prince amongst the nations of Hind can claim affinity with the emperors of ' the mistress of the world,' though at a tunc when her. glory had waned, and her crown had been transferred from the Tiber to the Bosphorus.
But though I deem it morally impossible that the Ranas should have their lineage from any male branch of the Persian house, I would not equally assert that Mahabanu, the fugitive daughter of Yazdegird, may not have foimd a husband, as well as sanctuary, with the prince of Saurashtra ; and she may be the Subhagna (mother of Siladitya), whose mysterious amour with the ' sun ' 1 compelled her to abandon her native city of Kaira. The son of Marian had been in Saurashtra, and it is therefore not unlikely that her grandchild should there seek protection in the reverses of her family.
The Salic law is here in full force, and honours, though never acquired by the female, may be stained by her ; yet a daughter of the noble house of Sassan might be permitted to perpetuate the line of Rama without the reproach of taint.2 We shall now abandon this point to the reader, and take leave 1 It will be recollected that the various authorities given state Raja Suraj (sun), of Kakustha race, to be the father of Siladitya. Kakustha is a term used synonymously with Suryavansa, according to the Solar genea logists. Those who may be inchned to the Persian descent may trace it from Kaikaus, a well-known epithet in the Persian dynasties. I am unacquainted with the etymology of Kakustha ; but it may possibly be from ka, ' of or belonging to,' Kusa (Cush), the second son of Rama [?]. I have already hinted that the Assyrian Medes might be descendants of Hyaspa, a branch of the Indu-Mede of the family of Yayati which bore the name of Kausika. [The reference in the text may be to Kakutstha, grandson of Ikshwaku, who is said to have taken his name because he stood on the hump (Kukuda) of Indra when he was turned into a bull (Wilson, Vishna Purana, 361).]
2 " The moral consequence of a pedigree," says Hume, " is differently marked by the influence of law and custom. The male sex is deemed more noble than the female. The association of our ideas pursues the regular descent of honour and estates from father to son, and their wives, however essential, are considered only in the light of foreign auxiharies " {Essays, vol. ii. p. 192). Not unlike the Rajput axiom, though more coarsely ex pressed ; " It is, who planted the tree, not where did it grow," that marks his idea of the comparative value of the side whence honours originate ; though purity of blood in both hnes is essential. of Yazdegird, 1 the last of the house of Sassan, in the words of the historian of Rome : " Avec lui, on voit perir pour jamais la gloire et I'empire des Perses. Les rochers du Mazendaran et les sables du Kerman, furent les seuls - asiles que les vainqueurs hisserent aux sectateurs de Zoroastre "' ' [240].
