View source for Rajput 07: Foundations of States and Cities by the different tribes A

[[Category:India |R ]]
[[Category:History |R ]]
{| class="wikitable"
|-
|colspan="0"|<div style="font-size:100%">
This page is an extract from <br/>
ANNALS AND ANTIQUITIES <br/>
OF <br/>
'''RAJASTHAN '''<br/>

OR THE CENTRAL AND WESTERN <br/>
RAJPUT STATES OF INDIA <br/>

By <br/>
LIEUT.-COL. JAMES TOD <br/>
Late Political Agent to the Western Rajput States <br/>

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by <br/>
WILLIAM CROOKE, CIE. <br/>
Hon. D.Sc. Oxon., B.A., F.R.A.l. <br/>
Late of the Indian Civil Service <br/>

In Three Volumes <br/>
VOL. II: HISTORY OF THE RAJPUT TRIBES<br/>
[The Annals were completed in 1829]<br/>

HUMPHREY MILFORD <br/>
Oxford University Press <br/>
London Edinburgh Glasgow New York <br/>
Toronto Melbourne Bombay <br/>
1920 [The edition scanned] <br/>
</div>
|}
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, [http://www.facebook.com/Indpaedia Indpaedia.com] your help will be gratefully acknowledged.

=Rajput 07: Foundations of States and Cities by the different tribes A=

==Ayodhya== 	
	
Ayodhya 2  was the first city founded by the race of 
Surya. Like other capitals, its importance must have risen by 

1 Egyptian, under Misraim, 2188 b.c. ; Assyrian, 2059 ; Chinese, 2207. 
[The first Egyptian dynasty is now dated 5500 B.C. ; Chinese, 2852 B.C. ; 
Babylonian, 2300 B.C. Any attempt to establish an Indian chronology from 
the materials used by the Author does not promise to be successful.] 

2 The picture drawn by Valmild of the capital of the Solar race is so 
highly coloured that Ayodhya might stand for Utopia, and it would be 
difficult to find such a catalogue of metropolitan embellishments in this, 
the iron age of Oudh. " On the banks of the Surayu is a large country 
called Kosala, in which is Ayodhya, built by Mann, twelve yojans (forty
eight miles) in extent, with streets regular and well watered. It was filled 
with merchants, beautified by gardens, ornamented with stately gates and 
high-arched porticoes, furnished v/ith arms, crowded with chariots, elephants, 
and horses, and with ambassadors from foreign lands ; embellisbed with 
palaces whose domes resembled the mountain tops, dwellings of equal height, 
resounding with the delightful music of the tabor, the flute, and the harp. 

slow degrees ; yet making every allowance for exaggeration, it 
must have attained great splendour long anterior to Rama. Its 
site is well known at this day under the contracted name of 
Oudh, which also designates the country appertaining to the 
titular wazir of the Mogul empire ; which country, twenty-five 
years ago, nearly marked the limits of Kosala, the pristine 
kingdom of the Surya race. Overgrown greatness characterized 
all the ancient Asiatic capitals, and that of Ayodhya was immense. 
Lucknow, the present capital, is traditionally asserted to have been 
one of the suburbs of ancient Oudh, and so named by Rama, in 
compliment to his brother Lakshman. 

==Mithila==

Nearly coeval in point of. time with Ayodhya was 
Mithila,1  the capital of a country of the same name, founded by 
Mithila, the grandson of Ikshwaku. 
The name of .Janaka,2  son of Mithila, eclipsed that of the founder 
and became the patronymic of this branch of the Solar race. 

==Other Kingdoms==

These are the two chief capitals of the 
kingdoms of the Solar line described in [39] this early age : though 
there were others of a minor order, such as Rohtas, Champapura,3  
etc., all founded previously to Rama. 

By the numerous dynasties of the Lunar race of Budha many 
kingdoms were founded. Much has been said of the antiquity 
of Prayag ; yet the first capital of the Indu or Lunar race appears 

It was surrounded by an impassable moat, and guarded by archers. Dasa-
ratha was its king, a mighty charioteer. There were no atheists. The 
affections of the men were in their consorts. The women were chaste and 
obedient to their lords, endowed with beauty, wit, sweetness, prudence, 
and industry, with bright ornaments and fair apparel ; the men devoted 
to truth and hospitality, regardful of their superiors, their ancestors, and 
their gods. 

"There were eight councillors ; two chosen priests profoimd in the law, 
besides another inferior council of six. Of subdued appetites, disinterested, 
forbearing, pleasant, patient ; not avaricious ; well acquainted with their 
duties and popular customs ; attentive to the army, the treasury ; im
partially awarding punishment even on their own sons ; never oppressing 
even an enemy ; not arrogant ; comely in dress ; never confident about 
doubtful matters ; devoted to the sovereign." 

1  Mithila, the modern Tirhut in Bengal [including the modern districts 
of Darbhanga, Champaran, and Muzaffarpur]. 
2  Kusadhwaja, father of Sita (spouse of Rama), is also called Janaka ; 
a name common in this line, and borne by the third prince in succession 
after Suvarna Roma, the ' golden-haired ' chief Mithila. 
3  [Rohtas in the modern Shahabad district ; Champapura in Bhagalpur.] 
to have been founded by Sahasra Arjuna, of the Haihaya tribe.
 
This was Mahishmati on the Nerbudda, still existing in Mahes
war.1 The rivalry between the Lunar race and that of the Suryas 
of Ayodhya, in whose aid the priesthood armed, and expelled 
Sahasra Arjuna from Mahishmati, has been mentioned. A small 
branch of these ancient Haihayas 2 yet exist in the line of the 
Nerbudda, near the very top of the valley at Sohagpur, in Baghel-
khand, aware of their ancient lineage ; and, though few in number, 
are still celebrated for their valour.3 

==Dwarka==

Kusasthali Dwarka, the capital of Krishna, was 
founded prior to Prayag, to Surpur, or Mathura. The Bhagavat 
attributes the foundation of the city to Anrita, the brother of 
Ikshwaku, of the Solar race, but states not how or when the 
Yadus became possessed thereof. 

The ancient annals of the Jaisalmer family of the Yadu stock 
give the priority of foundation to Prayag, next to Mathura, and 
last to Dwarka. All these cities are too well known to require 
description ; especially Prayag, at the confluence of the Yamuna 
and Ganges. The Prasioi were the descendants of Puru 4  of 
Prayag, visited by Megasthenes, ambassador of Seleucus, and the 
principal city of the Yadus, ere it sent forth the four branches 
from Satwata. At Prayag resided the celebrated Bharat, the 
son of Sakuntala. 

In the Ramayana the Sasavindus 5  (another Yadu race) are 
inscribed as allied with the Haihayas in the wars with the race of 
Surya ; and of this race was Sisupal 6 (the founder of Chedi 7), 
one of the foes of Krishna [40]. 

1  Familiarly designated as Sahasra Bahu ki Basti, or ' the town of the 
thousand-armed.' [In Indore State (IGI, xvii. 8).] 
2 The Haihaya race, of the line of Budha, may claim affinity with the 
Chinese race which first gave monarchs to China [?]. 
3  Of this I have heard the most romantic proofs in very recent times. 
4  Puru became the patronymic of this branch of the Lunar race. Of this 
Alexander's historians made Porus. The Suraseni of Methoras (descendants 
of the Sursen of Mathura) were all Purus, the Prasioi of Megasthenes [see 
p. .37, n.]. Allahabad yet retains its Hindu name of Prayag, pronounced 
Prag. 
5  The Hares. Sesodia is said to have the same derivation. [From 
Sesoda in Mewar.] 
6 The princes of Ranthambhor, expelled by Prithwiraja of Delhi, were 
of this race. 
7  The modern Chanderi [in the Gwalior State, IGI, x. 163 f.] is said to be 

==Surpur==

We are assured by Alexander's historians that the 
country and people round Mathura, when he invaded India, were 
termed Surasenoi. There are two princes of the name of Sursen 
in the immediate ancestry of Krishna ; one his grandfather, the 
other eight generations anterior Which of these founded the 
capital Surpur,1 whence the country and inhabitants had their 
appellation, we cannot say Mathura and Cleisobara are men-
tioned by the historians of Alexander as the chief cities of the 
Surasenoi. Though the Greeks sadly disfigure names, we cannot 
trace any affinity between Cleisobara and Surpur. 

this capital, and one of the few to which no Englishman has obtained 
entrance, though I tried hard in 1807. Doubtless it would afford food for 
curiosity ; for, being out of the path of armies in the days of conquest and 
revolution, it may, and I believe does, retain much worthy of research. 
[The capital of the Chedi or Kalachuri dynasty was Tripura or Karanbel, 
near Jabalpur (IGI, x. 12).] 

1 I had the pleasure, in 1814, of discovering a remnant of this city, which 
the Yamuna has overwhelmed. [The ancient Suryapura was near Batesar, 
40 miles south-east of Agra city. Sir H. Elliot (Supplemental Glossary, 187) 
remarks that it is strange that the Author so often claims the credit of dis
covery when its position is fixed in a set of familiar verses. For Suryapura 
see A. Fiihrer, Monumental Antiquities and Inscriptions, 69.] The sacred 
place of pilgrimage, Batesar, stands on part of it. My discovery of it was 
doubly gratifying, for while I found out the Surasenoi of the Greeks, I 
obtained a medal of the little known Apollodotus, who carried his arms to 
the mouths of the Indus, and possibly to the centre of the land of the Yadus.
 
He is not included by Bayer in his lists of the kings of Bactria, but we have 
only an imperfect knowledge of the extent of that dynasty. The Bhagavat 
Purana asserts thirteen Yavan or Ionian princes to have ruled in Balichdes 
[?] or Bactria, in which they mention Pushpamitra Dvimitra. We are 
justified in asserting this to be Demetrius, the son of Euthydemus, but who 
did not succeed his father, as Menander intervened. Of this last conqueror 
I also possess a medal, obtained amongst the Surasenoi, and struck in com
memoration of victory, as the winged messenger of heavenly peace extends 
the palm branch from her hand. These two will fill up a chasm in the 
Bactrian annals, for Menander is well known to them. ApoUodotus would 
have perished but for Arrian, who wrote the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea 
in the second century, while commercial agent at Broach, or classically 
Brigukachchha, the Barugaza of the Greeks. [The Periplus of the Erythraean 
Sea was written by an unknown Greek merchant of first century A.D. 
(McCrindlo, Commerce and Navigation, Introd. p. 1).] 

Without the notice this writer has afforded us, my Apollodotus would 
have lost half its value. Since my arrival in Europe I have also been made 
acquainted with the existence of a medal of Demetrius, discovered in 
Bokhara, and on which an essay has been written by a savant at St. 
Petersburg. 

==Hastinapura ==

The city of Hastinapura was built by Hastin 
a name celebrated in the Lunar dynasties. The name of this 
city is still preserved on the Ganges, about forty miles south of 
Hardwar,1 where the Ganges breaks through the Siwalik moun-
tains and enters the plains of India. This mighty stream, rolling 
its masses of waters from the glaciers of the Himalaya, and joined 
by many auxiliary streams, frequently carries destruction before 
it. In one night a column of thirty feet in perpendicular height 
has been known to bear away all within its sweep, and to such an 
occurrence the capital of Hastin is said to have owed its ruin.^ 
As it existed, however, long after the Mahabharata, it is surpris-
ing it is not mentioned by the historians of Alexander, who in
vaded India probably about eight centuries after that event. In 
this abode of the sons of Puru resided Porus, one of the two 
princes of that name, opponents of Alexander, and probably 
Bindusara the son of Chandragupta, surmised to be the Abisares 3 
and Sandrakottos of Grecian authorities. Of the two princes 
named Porus mentioned by Alexander's [41] historians, one 
resided in the very cradle of the Puru dynasties ; the abode of 
the other bordered on the Panjab : warranting an assertion that 
the Pori of Alexander were of the Lunar race, and destroying 
all the claims various authors 4 have advanced on behalf of the 
princes of Mewar.5 

Hastin sent forth three grand branches, Ajamidha, Dvimidha, 
and Purumidha. Of the two last we lose sight altogether ; but 
Ajamidha's progeny spread over all the northern parts of India, 
in the Panjab and across the Indus. The period, probably one 
thousand six hundred years before Christ. 

1 The portal of Hari or Hara, whose trisula or trident is there. 
2 Wilford says this event is mentioned in two Puranas as occurring in the 
sixth or eighth generation of the Great War. Those who have travelled in 
the Duab must have remarked where both the Ganges and Jumna have 
shifted their beds. 
3 [Abisares is Abhisara in the modern Kashmir State (Smith, EHI, 59).] 
4  Sir Thomas Roe ; Sir Thomas Herbert ; the Holstein ambassador (by 
Olearius) ; Delia Valle ; Churchill, in his collection : and borrowing from 
these, D'Anville, Bayer, Orme, Rennell, etc. 
5  The ignorance of the family of Mewar of the fact would by no means 
be a conclusive argument against it, could it be otherwise substantiated ; 
but the race of Surya was completely eclipsed at that period by the Lunar 
and new races which soon poured in from the west of the Indu.s, and in time 
displaced them all. 
 
From Ajamidha,1  in the fourth generation, was Bajaswa, who 
obtained possessions towards the Indus, and whose five sons gave 
their name, Panchala, to the Panjab, or space watered by the 
five rivers. The capital founded by the younger brother, Kam-
pila, was named Kampilnagara.2 

The descendants of Ajamidha by his second "wife, Kesini, 
founded another kingdom and dynasty, celebrated in the heroic 
history of Northern India. This is the Kausika dynasty.