The
alliance
suggests the
origin of the Chandels.
origin of the Chandels.
Cambridge History of India - v3 - Turks and Afghans
The Gahlot legend, disfigured by some palpable falsehoods,
represents him 'as the Ulysses of the host ; brave, cool, and skilful
in the fight ; prudent, wise, and eloquent in council ; pious and
decorous on all occasions ; beloved by his own chiefs and reverenced
by the vassals of the Chauhan. '
Little more that is authentic is known of the history of the
Gahlots or Sesodias until the reign of 'Alā ud-din Khalji, who,
having already captured Ranthambhor from the Chauhāns, be-
sieged and took Chitor in 1303'. The bard's account of this siege
is most inaccurate and misleading. He antedates it by thirteen
years, to a time when ‘Alā-ud-din had not ascended the throne ; he
1 See ante, p. 108.
## p. 525 (#575) ############################################
xx]
SESODIAS OF MEWĀR
525
makes Lachhman Singh, a distant cousin of the ruling prince, Rānā
of Chitor at the time of the siege ; and he makes the fair Padmini,
whom 'Alā-ud-din coveted, the wife of the prince's uncle. These
gross inaccuracies entirely discredit a story improbable in itself, at
variance with known facts, and designed to minimize the disgrace
of the loss of a strong fortress, of treachery on the part of Alā-ud-
din. The facts were that Ratan Singh was Rānā of Chitor, and that
Lachhman Singh, Rānā of Sesoda, commanded the fortress on his
behalf. Their common ancestor was Karan Singh, Rāwal of Chitor,
from whom Ratan Singh was ninth and Lachhman Singh eleventh
in descent. Ratan Singh was apparently in the fortress when it
was besieged, but, though the rite of jauhar is said to have been
performed and Lachhman Singh and eight thousand other Rajputs
fell, he was taken alive and carried off to Delhi. The fair Padmini
did not perish in the fire, as related by the bard, but lived to be
the subject of negotiation between her husband and his captor, and
the object of the bard's fiction appears to be the concealment of
Ratan Singh's readiness to obey the ancient maxim which permits
a Rājput to surrender his wife in order to preserve his land.
‘Ala-ud-din left Māldeo, Raja of Jālor, whom he had defeated
and who had sworn fealty to him, in command of Chitor, and the
towns of Mewār were held by Muslim garrisons, and the survivors
of the Sesodias, and those who remained faithful to them took
refuge at Kelwārā! , in the heart of the Arāvalli Mountains, and
from this stronghold harried the lands of Mewār. Māldeo was
shortly afterwards relieved of the command of Chitor, and Khizr
Khān, the eldest son of ‘Ala-ud-din, was appointed in his place, but
after the rescue of Ratan Singh'Alā-ud-din removed Khizr Khan
and appointed Arsi, or Ar Singh, to the command. Arsi was, ac-
cording to the Hindu legend, the elder son of Ajai Singh, Rānā of
Chitor, and, according to the Muslim chronicles, sister's son to
Ratan Singh. The bards do not mention Arsi's appointment to the
command of the fortress, but the Muslim historians say that on
being appointed he swore fealty to 'Alā-ud-din, who by this means
sowed discord among the Rajputs, some of whom remained faithful
to Ratan Singh, while others submitted to Arsi. The history of
Chitor at this time is hopelessly confused, owing to the silence of
the Muslim historians and the discrepancies between the Hindu
legends and the few facts known. It is certain, however, that Chitor
was recovered by the Rājputs shortly after this time, and that
Hamir, or Hamira Singh, was the hero of the enterprise. The pre-
1 In 25° 7'N. and 73° 36'E. 2 See ante p. 111,
## p. 526 (#576) ############################################
526
[ch.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDJA
cise degree of relationship between Hamir and the Rānā is uncertain.
According to the bards he was the son of Arsi, the elder son of Ajai
Singh, but it seems probable that he was the grandson of Ratan
Singh. The bards, in recording the recovery of Chitor, assign no
date to it, but assert that it occurred in the reign of 'Mahmūd
Khalji of Delhi,' a king unknown to history. Elsewhere to Rajputs
are said to have recovered Chitor about 1312, four years before the
death of 'Alā-ud-din, who reigned until 1316, to have thrown the
Muhammadan officers from the ramparts, and to have asserted their
independence, but from an inscription at Chitor it appears that the
fort was not recovered until the time of Muhammad Tughluq, who
reigned from 1325 to 1351. According to native annals the ‘Mahmud
Khaljī in whose reign the fort was taken by Hamir was marching to
recover it when he was met, defeated, and captured by the Rānā,
who imprisoned him for three months at Chitor, and would not
liberate him until he had surrendered Ajmer, Ranthambhor, Nāgaur,
and Sui Sopar, with five millions of rupees and five hundred
elephants. No Muslim king of Delhi was ever a prisoner in Chitor,
or ever surrendered the fortresses mentioned to a Rānā of Chitor,
and the story appears to be a clumsy but wilful adaptation of the
defeat and capture of Mahmūd Khalji II of Mālwa by Sangrama
about 200 years after this time. Hamir's reputation stands in need of
so much manipulation of history. His reign was long and glorious.
He lived until 1364, recovered all the dominions of his ancestors, and
laboured to restore their prosperity.
He was succeeded by his son Kshetra, or Khet Singh, who ex-
tended the dominions of his house and is credited by the bards with
a victory over the Mughul emperor Humāyān, considerably more
than a century before the latter's birth. He was slain in a family
brawl in 1382, and was succeeded by his son Laksh Singh, or Lākhā.
He conquered the mountainous region of Merwara and destroyed
its chief stronghold, Bairātgarh, on the site of which he built
Badnor, but of greater importance than this conquest was his dis-
covery of the mines at Jāwar, sixteen miles south of Udaipur city,
in territory taken by his father from the Bhils. These produced
lead, zinc, and some silver, and the wealth thus acquired enabled
him to rebuild the temples and palaces destroyed by 'Alā-ud-din,
and to build dams to form reservoirs or lakes for irrigation. Lākhā
also defeated the Sānkhla Rājputs of Nagarchal, a district lying in
the north of the present State of Jaipur, but the bards are not con-
1 In 25° 50' N, and 74° 17' E.
## p. 527 (#577) ############################################
xx ]
RĀTHORS EXPELLED FROM MEWĀR
527
tent with these exploits, and credit him with a victory over an
imaginary Muhammad Shāh Lodi of Delhi.
Lākhā's eldest son, Chonda, was to have been betrothed to the
daughter of Ranmall the Rāthor, but being annoyed by an innocent
pleasantry of his father, which he regarded as indelicate, refused
to accept Ranmall's offer of his daughter, and, as it could not be
rejected without giving grave offence, Lākhā himself accepted it,
but insisted that Chonda should relinquish his right to the suc-
cession in favour of any issue which might be born of the Rāthor
lady. He agreed and Lākhā was succeeded, on his death in 1397,
by his son Mokalji, aged five, for whom Chonda acted as regent
until, incensed by the unjust suspicions of the child's mother, he
retired from the kingdom. The bards are at fault regarding his
destination, which they give as Māndū, the capital of the Muslim
kingdom of Mālwa, while they place the grant of land which he
received in the west of the peninsula of Kāthiāwār, which was never
included in the kingdom. On Chonda's departure the rapacious
Rāthor kinsmen of the young Rānā's mother flocked into the state.
Her brother Jodha, who afterwards founded Jodhpur, came first,
but was soon followed by their father, Ranmall, with a large con-
tingent of that clan. They murdered Raghudeva, the younger
brother of Chonda, and their designs on the throne were so evident
that the mother, trembling for her child's liſe, begged Chonda to
return. He obeyed the summons, and promised to join her and the
young Rānā on the Diwali festival, the feast of lamps, at Gosunda,
seven miles south of Chitor. Chonda and his band obtained ad-
mission to Chitor in the guise of neighbouring chieftains who had
assembled to escort their prince to his capital. They overpowered
the garrison, slew Rāo Ranmall and a large number of the Rāthors,
and would have slain Jodha, had he not saved himself by flight.
Chonda pursued him, occupied Mandor, then the Rāthor capital,
which was held by the Sesodias for twelve years, and annexed the
fertile district of Godwār, which adjoined Mewar.
Jodha Rāthor was a wanderer for seven years, but eventually
succeeded in assembling a force of Rājputs of his own and other
tribes, and in expelling the Sesodias from Mandor, where the two
sons of Chonda were slain.
Mokal's reign was not distinguished by any feats of arms. The
bards attribute to him a victory over the king of Delhi, but no
contemporary king of Delhi was in a position to attack ibe Rānā
of Chitor, and if there is any foundation for the bard's story Mokal
must be suspected of refusing an asylum to Mahmūd, the last of
## p. 528 (#578) ############################################
528
[ch.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
the Tughluq dynasty, when he was fleeing from Deihi after his
defeat by Tīmūr. Mokal was assassinated in 1433 by two of his
uncles, natural sons of his grandfather, they having interpreted an
innocent question put by him as a reflection on their birth. He
was succeeded by his son Kumbha, one of the greatest of the princes
of Chitor, a soldier, a poet, a man of letters, and a builder to whom
Mewār owes some of her finest monuments. The temples of Kumbha
Sham at Mount Ābū and Rishabhadeva in the Sadri pass, 'leading
from the western descent of the highlands of Mewār, 'still stand as
memorials of his devotion. 'Of eighty-four fortresses for the defence
of Mewār, thirty-two were erected by Kūmbha. Inferior only to
Chitor is that stupendous work called after him’ Kūmbhalgarh,
'the fort of Kumbha. ' He captured Nāgaur and gained many suc-
cesses over his enemies in the intestinal feuds of the Rājputs, but
the ascription to him of a great victory over Mahmud I of Mālwa,
whom he is said to have taken prisoner, and to have released after
six months of captivity, is an error. Kümbha was not fortunate in
his campaigns against Mahmūd I, which have been described in
Chapter xiv, and if the Pillar of Victory' at Chitor does indeed
describe victories over that king it resembles the bardic chronicles.
Mewār's victory over Mālwa was gained by Sangrama, Kumbha's
grandson, over Mahmud II of Mālwa, whom he defeated and took
prisoner near Gāgraun in 1517. Kūmbha was stabbed to death in
1468, after a reign of thirty-five years, by his son Uda, but the
patricide was attacked and defeated by his brother Rāimall, and
is said to have fled to Delhi, and to have offered a daughter in
marriage to the Muslim king as the price of his aid in seating him
on his throne, but no mention is made by Muslim historians either
of this event or of a subsequent Muhammadan invasion of Mewār
described by the bards, and Buhlul Lodi, who was then reigning at
Delhi, was otherwise too deeply engaged to embark on such a cam-
paign. Uda is said to have been struck by lightning and killed, as
he was leaving the king's presence at Delhi, but however this may
be, no more is heard of him, and Rāimall kept the throne. He was
a warlike prince, but he certainly did not, as recorded in the Rājput
annals, carry on an interminable strife with Ghiyās-ud-din Khalji
of Mālwa, a slothful and unwarlike prince who hardly ever left his
palace, but it is not improbable that Rāimall raided the frontiers
of Mālwa.
He had three sons, Sangrama or Sangā, Prithvi Rāj, and Jaimall,
whose ambition bred bitter strife between them until Sangrama
withdrew from Mewār and lived in concealment to avoid the violence
## p. 529 (#579) ############################################
XX ]
BATTLE OF KHĀNUA
529
of Prithvi Rāj, and Prithvi Rāj was banished. Jaimall was now re.
garded as the heir, but in attempting to gain access of the damsel
whom he was to marry was slain by her indignant father, and
Prithvi Rāj was recalled from banishment and gained the hand of
the maiden on whose account his brother had been slain. Another
claimant to the throne arose in the person of Surajmall, the cousin
of the three princes, but Prithvi Rāj defeated him and drove him
from Mewār, and his great-grandson, Bika, founded the Partābgarh.
Deolia state. Prithvi Rāj was afterwards pois ned by his brother-in-
law, Jaimall of Sirohi; whose title to Ābū had been confirmed by his
marriage, and whom Prithvi Rāj had punished for ill treating his
sister ; and on Rāimall's death in 1508 his eldest son, Sangrama,
'
succeeded him without opposition.
Sangrama, destined to fall on the field of battle, was one of the
greatest of the princes of Chitor. "Eighty thousand horse, seven
Rajas of the highest rank, nine Rāos, and one hundred and four
chieftains bearing the titles of Rāwal and Rāwat, with five hundred
war elephants, followed him into the field. The princes of Mārwār
and Amber did him homage, and the Rāos of Gwalior, Ajmer, Sikri,
Rāisen, Kālpi, Chanderi, Bundi, Gāgraun, Rāmpura, and Ābû served
him as tributaries or held of him in chief? . ' Sangrama, like some
of his predecessors, is credited with victories for which there is no
historical warrant over the king of Delhi, Ibrāhim Lodī, but he
profited by the weakness and distractions of his enemies to extend
and secure his frontiers, and it was he who, as already described,
defeated and captured Mahmūd II of Mālwa, whose army contained
a contingent placed at his disposal by the Sultan of Gujarāt, so that
the victor was able to boast that he had defeated the allied forces
of two Muslim kings.
Sangrama had been in communication with Bābur while the
latter was still at Kābul, and had agreed, in the event of his invading
India, to attack Agra while he attacked Delhi, but had failed
10 fulfil his promise hoping, apparently, either that both Bābur
and Ibrāhīm Lodi would be destroyed or that the victor would be
so exhausted as to afford him an opportunity of establishing his
supremacy and restoring Hindu rule in Northern India. Not content
with failing to aid Bābur, he assembled a large army to attack him,
and began operations by besieging Bayāna. Bābur marched to the
relief of the fortress, and Sangrama raised the siege and marched
1 Tod, i, 348, 349. This account, based on the statements of the bards, is
somewhat highly coloured.
2 Sec ante, pp. 368. 369.
C,H. I. III.
34
## p. 530 (#580) ############################################
530
( CH.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
to Khānua, near Sikri, where the fate of Northern India was decided.
A full account of the battle will be given in the records of Bābur's
reign. Sangrama displayed no eagerness to attack the Muslims, and
according to the Hindu annals the battle was preceded by negotia-
tions, in which Silahdi the Tomār, chief of Räisen, a fief of Mālwa,
but now virtually independent, was employed as theinter mediary.
He is said, on the same authority, to have made a private agree-
ment with Bābur, in pursuance of which he deserted the Hindu
cause and joined the Muslims during the battle, but the extenuation
of defeat by allegations of treachery is as common in Hindu annals
as in those of other nations. The Rājputs suffered a crushing defeat.
Sangrama himself was severely wounded, and Rāwal Udai Singh of
Dungarpur ; Ratan Singh, Rāwat of Salūmbar ; Rāimall Rāthor,
r
grandson and heir of the prince of Mārwār ; Khet Singh and Ratan
Singh of Mertha ; Rāmdās, Rāo of Jālor ; Uja Jhāla ; Gokuldas
Pawār; Mānikchand and Chandrabhān, Chauhāns; and many others
of less note were slain.
Sangrama retired towards Mewāt, resolved not to return to his
capital until he had retrieved his defeat and crushed the invader ;
but his ministers shrank from the discomfort and hardships which
his decision imposed upon them, and he died at Baswa of poison
administered at their instigation.
He was succeeded by Ratan Singh II, his eldest surviving son,
who was secretly affianced to the daughter of the Kachhwāha,
Prithvi Rāj, Rão of Amber, but delayed the marriage ceremony, and
Surajmall, Rão of Būndi of the Hāra clan of the Chauhāns, sought
and obtained her hand in marriage. Sūrajmall and Ratan Singh met
and fought in 1531, when each killed the other, and Vikramāditya
or Bikramājīt succeeded his brother on the throne of Mewār. The
new Rānā was arrogant, passionate, and vindictive, and alienated
his nobles, and the cavaliers of Mewār, by his preference for the
society of wrestlers and athletes and for the infantry of his army,
which he devleoped at the expense of his cavalry. An open rupture
occurred between the prince and his nobles, and his cavalry refused
to perform their duties. Matters had reached this stage when Sultān
Bahādur of Gujarāt marched against Bikramājīt, then encamped
at Loicha, in the Bundi territory. The feudal forces of the state
deserted their sovereign and marched off to defend Chitor and the
infant Udai Singh, posthumous son of Sangrama. Bahādur gained
an easy victory over the pāiks, or foot-soldiers of Mewār', and turned
towards Chitor, to the defence of which the prince of Būndi, the
1 See ante, p. 339.
## p. 531 (#581) ############################################
xx]
JĀDONS OF JAISALMER
531
Rāos of Jālor and Ābū, and many chiefs from all parts of Rājasthān
hastened. The siege has been described in Chapter XII. Chitor
fell in 1531, and became for a short time a possession of the kingdom
of Gujarāt, but Udai Singh, who had been crowned during the siege,
was carried off into safety by Surjan, prince of Būndi. There is no
truth in the Rājput story of the dispatch of the rākhi to Humāyūn
by the young Rānā's mother, and of the latter's chivalrous response,
for though he had received gross provocation from Bahādur he
punctiliously refrained from attacking him while he was engaged in
warfare against the 'misbelievers'. After the fall of Chitor, however,
Bahādur was compelled to retire before Humāyūn, and Bikramājīt
returned and almost immediately recovered the fortress. He had
learned no wisdom in adversity, and his insolence and arrogance
towards his nobles culminated in a blow inflicted in open court on
Karamchand of Ajmer, his father's protector and benefactor. On
the following day the nobles put the unworthy prince to death and,
dreading the rule of a minor at such a critical period, persuaded
Banbir Singh, natural son of Prithvi Rāj, Sangrama's younger
brother, to mount the throne. Banbir immediately sought the liſe
of the infant, Udai Singh, but he was saved by a faithful nurse, who
carried him off, and, after some vicissitudes, delivered him to Āsā
Sāh, governor of Kümbhalgarh, who ensured his safety by passing
him off as his nephew, and for three years kept the secret of his
presence with him. The rumour at length spread that the son of
Sangrama was at Kumbhalgarh, and the nobles of Mewār
assembled there to do him homage. The pretensions of the bastard,
Banbir, had offended them, and all deserted him. He still held the
capital, but his ministers admitted a thousand of the adherents of
the legitimate prince, and he was deposed, and Udai Singh was
enthroned in 1537.
The foundation of Jaisalmer by Rāwal Jaisal, the Bhāti, has been
mentioned. The Jādons, or Bhātis, yet occupy their home in the
desert. The Rāthors were gaining power in the land of Kher, the
desert of the west, and the Jādons found them troublesome neigh-
bours, rapacious and unscrupulous. Rāwal Chāchakdeo grandson
of Jaisal, who reigned from 1219 to 1241, made preparations to
chastise them, but their leaders conciliated him by giving him a
daughter to wife. Karan Singh I, who reigned from 1241 to 1271,
espoused the cause of a Hindu living near Nāgaur, whose only
daughter had been abducted by Muzaffar Khān, the Muslim ruler
or governor of that district, and defeated and slew the Khān and
three thousand of his men.
1 Sec ante, p. 330.
34-2
## p. 532 (#582) ############################################
532
[CH.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
The annals of Jaisalmer record a siege of the city by the troops
of 'Alā-ud-din Khalji of Delhi, which lasted for eight years, from
1286 to 1295. 'Alā-ud-din did not ascend the throne of Delhi until
1296, and no such siege as that sung by the bards ever took place.
The account of the performance of the rite of jauhar, and of the
death of 24,000 women in the flames, is detailed and circumstantial.
Three thousaud eight hundred Rājput warriors rushed on the foe;
Mülrāj III, the Jādon chief, and seven hundred of his kin ſell, and
Jaisalmer was occupied by a Muslim garrison which, after holding
the place for two years, dismantled it and retired.
It is impossible to connect this legend with any historical event,
but it may possibly be a wilful perversion of the defeat of the
Já dons by the Rāthors, for the annals proceed to relate that after
the retirement of the Muslim garrison Māloji Rāthor, chief of Mewa,
made preparations for occupying and colonizing the deserted city,
but was expelled by the Bhāti chiefs, Dūda and Tilak Sirgh, the
former of whom was elected Rāwal, and reigned from 1295 to 1306.
The bards of Jaisalmer, no whit inferior to those of other states in
imagination, thus describe the end of Dūda's reign, 'He even ex-
tended his raids to Ajmer, and carried off the stud of Firūz Shāh
from the Anasāgar (lake), where they were accustomed to be
,
watered. This indignity provoked another attack upon Jaisalmer,
attended with the same disastrous results. Again the sakha was
performed, in which sixteen thousand females were destroyed ; and
Dūda, with Tilak Singh and seventeen hundred of the clan, fell in
battle, after he had occupied the gaddi ten years. This statement
is quoted merely in order to display the shameless mendacity of the
bardic annals. Firūz Shāh was Jalāl-ud-din Firuz Khalji, the uncle
and predecessor of 'Alā-ud-din, who is said to have taken Jaisalmer
in the previous year. It may be one more perversion of a defeat at
the hands of the Rāthors.
Jaisalmer was again restored by Ghar Singh, who is said to have
received it in fee from the king of Delhi for services rendered
against Tīmūr, who did not invade India until nearly a century
aſter this time, but if any such services were rendered the occasion
was perhaps, as conjectured by Lt. Col. Tod, one of the many
irruptions of the Mughuls which took place at this period. Ghar
Singh was assassinated in 1335, and was succeeded by his adopted
son, Kehar Singh. Kehar Singh's third son, Kailan, involved the
Jaisalmer state in hostilities with the kingdom of Multān by estab-
lishing himself on the northern bank of the Sutlej, where he is said
## p. 533 (#583) ############################################
xx)
GWALIOR
533
to have founded the town of Kahror. The presence of the Bhātīs
on the Multān side of the river was resented, and Chāchakdeo, who
succeeded to Jaisalmer about 1448, is said to have resided at Marot
in order the more readily to repel raids on his territories from the
direction of Multān. He is credited in the annals of the state with
two victories over the Muslim kings of Multān, besides others over
the Dhundīs, the Rāthors, and even the Khokhars of the Punjab.
He is said to have lost his life in battle with the king of Multan,
but the native annals a most untrustworthy guide, are the only
authority for his exploits. Even these fail us after Chāchakdeo's
reign, and until the time of the Mughul emperors record nothing
but a bare list of names.
The famous fortress of Gwalior was held, at the time of Mahmūd's
incursions into India, by Kachhwāha Rājputs, probably feudatories
of the Chandels of Jijhoti. Mahmūd's siege of the fortress in 1022
has already been noticed, and its strength at that time may per.
haps be gauged by the easy terms on which he raised the siege.
About 1128 the Parihār Rājputs ousted the Kachhwāhas, a scion of
whom established himself in the neighbourhood of Amber. Qutb-
ud-din Aibak captured the fortress, but it was recovered during
the feeble reign of his son, Ārām Shāh, by the Parihār Birbal, or
Māl Deo, whose son, Mangal Bhava Deo, was holding it in 1232,
when Iltutmish attacked it. An account of his siege and capture
of the place has already been given,3 It remained in the hands of
the Muslim until after Timūr's invasion, and was captured, when
the kingdom of Delhi fell to pieces, by the Tomār, Har Singh, and
was successfully defended by his son Bhairon against the attacks of
Mallū in 1492 and 1403". The sieges of Gwalior in 1416, 1427, and
1432 by kings of the Sayyid dynasty were rather expeditions for
the purpose of collecting taxes, or tribute, then serious attempts
to capture the fortress, and the raja could always rid himself of
the invaders by a payment on account, and an illusory promise to
make regular payments in future. In 1423 Hūshang Shāh of Mālwa
attacked the fortress, but raised the siege when the Sayyid, Mubārak
Shāh, marched to its relief.
During the protracted contests in the reign of Buhlūl Lodi
between the kingdoms of Delhi and Jaunpur Man Singh of
Gwalior espoused the cause of the latter, and gave an asylum
to its last king, Husain Shāh, when he was fleeing before his
enemies.
1 In 29° 37' N. and 71° 56' E.
2 See an! e, p. 22,
3 See ante, p. 55.
4 Sec ante, p. 202.
## p. 534 (#584) ############################################
534
(CH.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
1
Mān Singh profited by the striſe between the Muslims to
extend his dominions, and when Sikandar Lodi, provoked by his
protection of a fugitive rebel, invaded them in 1505 and the follow-
ing years, he did not venture to attack Gwalior itself, but contented
himself with reducing Mandrãel, Utgir, and other fortresses of less
importance, and was eventually recalled from this campaign by
other affairs, but in 1518 his son, Ibrāhīm Lodī, incensed by the
raja's protection of the pretender, Jalal Khān, besieged his
capital, and Vikramāditya or Bikramājīt, the son and successor of
Mān Singh, was compelled to surrender.
Raja Mān Singh, who reigned from 1486 to 1517, enriched
Gwalior with the great palace which crowns the eastern face of
the rock, and earned a name as a patron of music and musicians.
The famous singer, Tân Sen, and the best musicians and singers at
Akbar's court had been trained in the Gwalior school.
The Kachhwāhas of Amber and Jaipur claim descent from the
ancient rajas of Gwalior, of that tribe. Tej Karan, known as Dulha
Rāi, or the Bridegroom prince, who was eighth in descent from
Vajradāman, the first Kachhwāha prince of Gwalior, left that city,
for some undetermined
reason, in charge of his sister's son, a
Parihār, who usurped his throne. Tej Karan married the daughter
of the Bargújar Rājput chief of Daosa, and inherited that princi-
pality, then known as Dhundhār, from the Dhūnd river. Maidal
Rāo, Tej Karan's grandson, took the fortress of Amber from the
Mina chief Bhāto, and made it his capital. Maidal's great-grandson,
Pajūn, married the sister of Prithvi Rāj of Ajmer and Delhi, and
was killed with his brother-in-law at the second battle of Tarāori.
The Amber state, as it was known after the establishment of that
town as the capital, was of little importance until the reign of
Humāyūn. Towards the end of the fourteenth century Udai Karan,
prince of Amber, added the Shekhāwati district to his dominions,
but his house did not otherwise specially distinguish itself.
Gondwāna, the forest region between Berar on the west and
Orissa on the east, was sparsely populated by the Gonds, Dravidians
who had probably migrated northwards from the Deccan, but in
the eleventh century the nothern and eastern tracts of this region,
which were known as Chedi, were ruled by two families of Haihaya
Bans Rājputs who were probably, like the Chandels of Jijhoti,
Hinduized Gonds. One family, which retained its possessions until
it was ousted by the Marāthās, had its capital at Ratanpur, in
the present Bilāspur District; and the other at Tripuri, or Tewar,
1 22° 17' N. , 82° 11' E.
## p. 535 (#585) ############################################
xx)
GOND KİNGDOMS
535
a
about six miles from Jubbulpore. The Haibayas were also known
as the Kālachurīs. Those of Tewar disappeared towards the end of
the twelfth century, being supplanted, as is commonly believed, by
Bāghels of Rewa, but according to Gond tradition by a Gond hero
named Jādū Rāi, said to be the ancester of the Gond dynasty which
was certainly reigning in that region, with its capital at Garha, not
long after that time.
Tradition records the existence of a dynasty of Gāoli, or cowherd
race, of whom nothing certain is known, at Deogarh, the old fortress
which stands twenty-four miles south-west of Chhindwāra. This
dynasty ended with the twin brothers Ransür and Ghansūr, who
reigned jointly, and who befriended a Gond named Jātba. Jātba
eventually slew his master and founded the Gond dynasty which
reigned at Deogarh. The only indication of a date in the legend is
the record of an imaginary visit paid by Akbar to Jātba, and even
tradition is silent as to the history of his successors, of whom hardly
anything is known until the time of Bakht Buland, who was reigning
at Deogarh at the latter end of the seventeenth century.
Rather more than sixty miles west of Deogarh stands the fortress
of Kherla, the foundation of which is attributed to a Rājput
dynasty, whose capital it remained for a long period. The last of
the line, Jaitpal, is said to have been killed ofter a twelve years'
siege by the army of the king of Delhi. No such siege is recorded
by the Muslim historians, but it is possible that the officials first
placed in Berar by 'Alā-ud-din Khalji extinguished the Rājput
dynasty and built the present fort, which appears to be of Muham-
mādan construction. It fell afterwards, probably during the rebel-
lion of the Deccan in the latter years of Muhammad Tughluq's
reign, into the hands of Gonds, who established a dynasty there.
Gond legend assigns a high degree of antiquity to the dynasty
of Southern Gond wāna, the original capital of which is said to have
been Sirpur, near the Pranhitā River, in the "Ādīlābād District of
the Nizām's dominions. Ballālpur, higher up the river and on the
opposite bank, was next selected as the capital, which was moved
almost immediately to the newly founded city of Chānda', where
the Gonds reigned until the dynasty was extinguished by the
Marāthās.
There were thus, when Muslim rule was established both in
Northern and in Southern India, four Gond kingdoms in Gondwāna
northern kingdom with its capital at Garha; two central
kingdoms with their capital at Deogarh and Kherla ; and a
southern kingdom with its capital at Chānda, 'There
1 19° 57' N. , 78° 58' E.
>
-а
are
no
3
## p. 536 (#586) ############################################
536
[CH.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
materials for a detailed history of these kingdoms during the
period of which we treat. The northern kingdom, known to the
Muslims as Garha-Katanga, from its capital and another town, and
afterwards as Garha Mandla, was extended by Sangram Shāh, who
succeeded about 1480, and developed the little state, consisting
of four districts lying about Garha and Mandla, into a kingdom
containing fifty-four districts, by annexing large portions of the
Narbada valley, the districts now called Sangor and Dāmoh, and
the present state of Bhopāl. He built the fortress of Chaurāgarh,
he enriched his capital with buildings, and he obtained the fair
Durgāvati, daughter of the Chandel raja of Mahoba, as a bride
for his son Dalpat, who succeeded him.
The alliance suggests the
origin of the Chandels.
Durgāwati, as regent for her son, Bir Narāyan, earned undying
fame as the defender of his inheritance against the Muslim ruler of
Mālwa and against Akbar, though she perished in the Mughul's
unprovoked attack on the kingdom.
of the history of the neighbouring kingdom of Deogarh nothing
certain, as has been said, is known until the reign of Bakht Buland,
late in the seventeenth century.
OF Kherla more is known. The fortress is situated near the
highway between Hindūstān and the Deccan, and could not fail to
attract attention. The Muslim kings of Deccan refrained from
molesting this state until, in 1398, Narsingh, the Gond raja, taking
advantage of Firuz Shāh's preoccupation with Vijayanagar, and
instigated by the Muslim rulers of Mālwa and Khāndesh, invaded
and ravaged Berar. He was driven out of that province and obliged
to swear ſealty to Firūz. Subsequent relations between the three
states, the Deccan, Mālwa, and Kherla, have been described in
Chapter xv. In the reign of Ahmad Shāh, brother and successor
of Firūz, it was agreed that the allegiance of Kherla should be
transferred to Mālwa, and the king of Mālwa afterwards captured
the fortress and exterminated the Gond dynasty. Kherla appears
in the Āin-i. Akbari as a district in the province of Berar.
of the southern kingdom, Chānda, yet more is known, but what
little certain knowledge we possess is disfigured and obscured by a
rank overgrowth of fiction. Despite the claims to antiquity made
in the legends of this kingdom it seems to have risen on the ruins
of the Vākātaka dynasty, whose capital was probably at Bhāndak,
a village near Chānda, at the end of the eleventh or beginning of
the twelfth century, and the names of nineteen kings who reigned
between that time and 1751, when the Marāthas occupied the
kingdom, have been preserved.
a
## p. 537 (#587) ############################################
xx]
KINGDOM OF CHĀNDA
537
The first was Bhim Ballār, or Ballal, Singh, whose capital was
at Sirpur and his chief stronghold Manikgarh, in the hills of west of
that town. His grandson was Hir Singh, who induced the Gonds
to cultivate the land and introduced a primitive land revenue
system. Hic Singh's grandson, Dinkar Singh, was a patron of
learning, and was succeeded by his son, Rām Singh, a just ruler
and a successful soldier, who extended the frontiers of his kingdom.
Rām Singh was succeeded by his son, Surja Ballāl Singh, 'one of
the most romantic figures of old Gondwāna. ' Owing to the absence
of any written record it is impossible to say precisely at what period
he reigned. The early part of the fifteenth century has been as-
signed as his date, but it appears to be at least as likely that he
lived early in the fourteenth century. The romantic circumstances
of his supposed visit to Delhi need not be recorded here, but it is
probable that he visited that city, though the fact has not been
deemed worthy of mention by any trustworthy historian. From
the absence of any such mention it may be inferred that the Gond
story of his rendering the king of Delhi an important service by
capturing the fortress of a Rājput named Mohan Singh which the
Muslim officers had failed to take is fiction, as is also the story that
the king rewarded him for the exploit with the title of Shāh, which
no Muslim king of Delhi would have conferred. It is certain, how-
ever, that Surja Ballāl and all who succeeded him on the throne of
Chānda used this title, in the form 'Sāh,' and it appears that Surja
Ballāl, who was known after his visit to Delhi as Sher Sāh Ballāl
Sāh, assumed it in imitation of the king of Delhi. Surja Ballāl
was succeeded by his son Khāndkia Ballāl Sāh, who suffered from
some disease which caused tumours and swellings on his body.
Seeking a healthier capital than Sirpur he built the town of Bal.
lālpur on the opposite side of the river. While hunting he acci-
dentally discovered near the site on which Chānda stands a pool
of water in a river bed, having drunk and washed himself
in the water, ſound his disease alleviated. It was decided that the
spot was the resting place of the great god Achaleshwar, the
'
Immovable One,' and Khāndkia, having been perfectly restored to
health by further use of the water, built a new capital near the
site, naming it Chandrapur, or Chānda (the Moon City). Its walls
were completed by his son and successor, Hir Sāh, who induced or
compelled his subjects to undertake the cultivation of fixed holdings
and constructed many reservoirs for irrigation. His revenue from
the land was assessed on the ploughs employed. He also built the
citadel and the palace of Chānda, parts of which still stand. Of
Hir Sāh it is recorded that he paid no tribute to any foreign king,
>
## p. 538 (#588) ############################################
538
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
(CH. XX
from which statement it may be inferred that his predecessors had
paid tribute, probably to the Bahmani kings of the Deccan, but
the relations between that kingdom and the southern Gond state
are most obscure. The king of Chānda were not, like those of
Kherla, drawn into the disputes between the kings of the Deccan
and their northern neighbours, and seem wisely to have avoided
such entanglements; but when Firūz Shāh, the eighth king of the
Bahmani dynasty, marched northwards, in 1399 or 1400, to punish
Narsinga of Kherla for having invaded Berar, the fortress of Māhūr
was held by a 'misbeliever,' probably a Gond from Chānda who
had joined Narsing ; but he was permitted to retain the command
of the fortress a governor on behalf of Firūz, on making submis-
sion? . The same governor was again in rebellion in 1424, and in the
following year Ahmad Shāh, the successor of Fīrūz, dealt with him in
the manner already described. Continuing his march northwards
Ahmad found the fortress of Kalam in the hands of a Gond chief,
whom he slew or expelled, and then led a raid into Gondwāna. He
probably crossed the Wardha on this occasion, and, if so, this is the
only recorded instance of the invasion of the Chānda kingdom by
a Muslim king.
Hir Sāh was succeeded by his two sons, Bhima and Lokbā, who
reigned jointly until they were succeeded by Kārn Sāh, the son of
one of them, who embraced and propagated the Hindu religion
and substituted the regular administration of justice for the primi-
tive system under which each man avenged his own wrongs.
Kārn Sāh was succeeded by his son, Bābāji Ballāl Sāh, who
recovered the fortress of Bairāgarh and is mentioned in the Āin-i.
Akbari3 as being able to place in the field 1000 horse and 40,000
foot. He paid no tribute.
The Gond language possesses no written characters, and a high
standard of civilization could hardly exist at the courts of the four
Gond kingdoms, but the kings were not mere barbarians. Their
architecture proves their taste, and if they possessed no native
literature many were enlightened enough to
to encourage Hindu
letters. The northern kingdom, Garha-Mandla, was rich, the rajas
of Deogarh and Kherla were warlike, but none could compare with
the greatness of the southern kingdom. Unlike the other Gond
kingdoms, the house of Chānda seems to have had a long succession
of good and intelligent rulers, who resisted the natural temptations
to inner striſe and intrigue which brought destruction to the other
kingdoms'.
1 See ante, p. 390.
2 See antte, p. 399.
3 Vol. ii, pp. 230, 232.
## p. 539 (#589) ############################################
CHAPTER XXI
BURMA A. D. 1287–1531. THE PERIOD OF
SNĀH IMMIGRATION
.
The Great Khān accepted the conquest of Pagān, described
in volume 11, as an accomplished fact, and for the next two and a
half centuries the princelets who ruled the various parts of Burma
frequently held authority under the Chinese seal. Technically they
were Chinese governors ; actually they were the native chieftains
who would have ruled there in any case and they did as they
pleased.
Since the Nanchao barrier states were henceforth the Chinese
province of Yunnan, the road lay open and there was no longer
any impediment to communication with China. That being so, we
should expect a inarked advance in Burmese culture. What we
actually witness is a decline. The great palace vanished, and in
its stead were several squabbling little courts of which the most
important were Āva, Pegū, and Toungoo. Religion languished,
and though pagodas continued to be built, none of them can com-
pare with even the lesser temples of Pagān. When at length the
darkness lifts, it is from the opposite direction to China that two
rays of light appear: one a religious revival from Ceylon, the other
the birth of vernacular literature.
Yet it was not the Tartars who destroyed the overlordship of
Pagān. They did not wish to upset existing conditions, and gave
the dynasty every support in re-establishing itself. It was washed
away by a wave of migration which was beyond the control of a
purely dynastic government. What we are now to witness is not
so much a series of internal squabbles as a racial movement affect-
ing all Indo-China : the Shāns swarm south, east, and west. In 1229
they founded the Āhom kingdom of Assam along the Brāhmaputra
river ; about the same time they made themselves felt in Tenas-
serim, and in 1350 they founded the kingdom of Siam-Siam is the
same word as Shān, and she is simply the greatest of Shān states. In
Burma they overran the entire country, swamping Burman and
Talaing alike. To-day they are most numerous race in Indo-
China, numbering eighteen millions? .
1Cochrane, 'The Shāns ; Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shān States.
## p. 540 (#590) ############################################
540
( CH.
BURMA A. D. 1287-1531
(a) Ava 1287-1555
Aſter killing his father, Thihathu proceeded to kill such of his
brothers as were in reach, in accordance with that Massacre of the
Kinsmen which convention permitted to a Burmese king at his
accession'. As the Tartars were in occupation of the north, he
went south and tried to establish himself in the Delta, but was
killed whilst besieging Pegū which was held by its rebellious gover-
nor, Tarabya.
The surviving son Kyawswa (1287-98) returned to Pagān, where
he paid annual tribute to China and in 1297 sent his son to receive
investiture from the Emperor himself as prince of the Upper Burma
state. This state, which lasted till 1555, ran from Myedu in Shwebo
district to below Prome, and from Laungshe in Pakokku district to
Kyaukse.
At the same time as he invested Kya wswa, the Emperor sent a
seal to Athinhkaya as prince of Myinsaing in the Kyaukse district ;
Hsenwi had been similarly recognised in 1. 89, and Mohnyinº in
1296. Athinhkaya was the eldest of the Three Shān Brothers (1298-
1324) who now became the real rulers of Upper Burna ; the second
;
was Yazāthinkyan, chief of Mokkayā ; the youngest Thihathu, chief
of Pinle. Their towns, all in the Kyaukse district, command passes
into the Shān hills and were exactly where a chieftain ruling hill
and plain would fix his stronghold - to command the plain and
afford easy escape to his ancestral highlands. They were the sons
of a hill chief who, owing to some feud, had Red to Myinsaing,
where there was already a Shān colony ; his daughter married no
less a person than a son of the Pagān dynasty, so that the family
gained ſavour at court and were entrusted with the administration
of the Kyaukse canals. When the dynasty fell, they had every
temptation to be disloyal, for, being in charge of the great canals
and rice fields, they controlled the food supplies of the palace. In
1298 they plotted with the queen dowager, lured Kyawswa into a
new monastery which they had built, and forced him to take the
robe and dwell there under guard. They then reported to Yunnan
that it had been necessary to dispose him because he was asking for
armed assistance from Chiengmai and had intercepted envoys whom
the new Talaing state of Pegu was sending to Yunnan. Finally they kill-
ed himº; at his death he said :'None of my ancestors was ever executed
1 See Harvey, History of Burma, p. 338. 2Parker, ‘Précis'.
3 He merges with Minrekyawswa to form the Minkyawswa Nai spirit ;
Temple, Thirty Seven Nats, p. 56.
## p. 541 (#591) ############################################
XXI ]
THE THREE SHĀN BROTHERS
541
with the sword. Either throw me into the river or strangle me';
so they strangled and cremated him and cast his remains into the
Irrawaddy? They killed also his son, his monk and principal
followers, and seized the harem.
Survivors of the dynasty appealed to Yunnan. The Yünnan
commandant obtained the Emperor's sanction, and with 12,000
men besieged the Brothers in three walled towns at Myinsaing.
On their walls the Brothers mounted balistae, and in one assault the
Tartars lost 500 men from the arrows blocks of stone, and beams
which rained down on the stormers. Finding the climate hot and
malarious, the Chinese accepted the bribe, 800 taels (63 lb. ) of gold
and 2200 taels (183 lb) of silver, and withdrew to Yunnan after let.
ting their men help on the Kyaukse irrigation works, constructing
the Thindwe canal. This is the end of Chinese interference in
Burma resulting from the expedition of 1287.
Whether Pagān had hitherto been fertile or not? , it was certainly
unfertile now, and the soil of the Myingyan district assumed its
present desolate and barren aspect. Denudation of the forests to
provide fuel for pagoda bricks had doubtless lessened the rainfall, and
extersive irrigation at Kyaukse
at Kyaukse might attract rainfall thither
from Pagān. Crops grow there, but not in such quantity as to
supply a city of 50,000 inhabitants who eat rice. Probably this
was the reason, in addition to the belief that the luck of the site
was exhausted, which now led to the removal of the palace from
Pagān.
There was rice in the Delta but it was far away and the Delta
was now under a hɔstile chief. There was rice in Kyaukse, but the
capital could not be put there, so far from the country's own high-
way, the Irrawaddy. It was necessary to find a site which should
be on the Irrawaddy and accessible to the rice of Kyaukse. The
obvious site was Ava, in the Sagaing district, where the Myitnge
river brought down the grain boats from Kyaukes. But as the
omens were adverse to Āva, Thihathu, the surviving Shān Brother,
in 1312 set up his palace at Pinya, a bad site near by, for which the
omens were favourable.
The Pagān dynasty continued to exist as myosa (governors)
of Pagān until 1369 and then ceased save where it had merged, on
1 For the taboo on shedding royal blood, and the convention whereby princes
were drowned, see Harvey, History of Burma, p. 339.
2 Huber, ‘Fin de la dynastie de Pagan' in Bulletin de l'Ecle Francaise d'Extreine
Orient, 1909.
3 Mekenzie, 'Climate in Burmese History' in Journal of the Burma Research
Society, 1913,
## p. 542 (#592) ############################################
542
[CH.
BURMA A. D. 1287–1531
:
>
the distaff side, with the lineage of the Shān Brothers. The only
specific mention of the Ari' after their overthrow by Anawrahta is
that Sawyun, lord of Sagaing, a son of Thihathu, in 1314 enume.
rated Ari among his armed retainers ; apparently they were like the
warrior abbots of contemporary Christendom.
Even in its limited area the Upper Burma state was loosely knit,
towns such as Sagaing, Sagu and Taungdwingyi doing as they
pleased. The confusion was something more than brigandage : it
was the result of a racial movement, nothing less than the Shān
migration into the plains of Burma. In 1364 the Maw (Mogaung)
Shāns took Sagaing and Pinya, carrying off the princes, the white
elephants, and numbers of the townsfolk. To escape being driven
off in Shān raiders' slave gangs, the population of Upper Burma
took to migrating to Toungoo.
After the Maw Shāns had departed, Thadominbya (1364–8), one
of the Sagaing fansily, killed off such of his kinsmen as stood in his
way there and at Pinya, drained the swamps round Āva, and built
the town. It was usually the Burmese capital for the next five
centuries ; till two generations ago the English, like the Chinese,
referred to Burmah as Āva, and for the Shāns the king of Burma
was to the end 'The Lord of the Golden Palace at Āva'. On his
mother's side Thadominbya was descended from the Three Shān
Brothers, and his father was a Shān notable who claimed descent
from the primitive Pyusawti lineage. His habits were sufficiently
primitive-thus, after killing a Toungoo rebel he ate a meal on the
corpse's chest. Whilst trying to subject Sugu he was seized with
small-pox. As he lay dying, a pagan who had no respect for Buddh.
ism, he told an officer to return to the palace and kill his queen
lest she should pass to his successor. The officer entered the palace
and told her his errand so she then and there married him. As part
of the regalia she had already been queen to four successive chiefs
of Pinya, and her union with the officer raised him to the throne.
The pair massacred the royal kinsmen but the ministers would not
accept them and hawked round the crown until finally Minkyiswas.
awke accepted it.
Minkyiswasawke (1368 - 1401) was descended from the union of
the Shān sister with the son of the Pagān dynasty, and as a child
1 Douroiselle, 'The Ari of Burma and Tantric Buddhism' in Annual Report of the
Archaeological Survey of India, 1915-16.
2 For Maw, Mogaung, Pong, etc. , see Harvey's History of Burma, p. 322.
3 For the custom whereby queens passed to the next king, see Harvey's History of
Burma, p. 324.
## p. 543 (#593) ############################################
XXI ]
THE KINGDOM OF ĀVA
543
he had been carried off into captivity with his father, the lord of
Thayetmyo, when Minhti, king of Arakan, raided it in 1333. On
his release he became thūgyi (village headman) of Amyin in the
Sagaing district and on becoming king he made an Arakanese
monk his primate. He built the Zidaw weir in Kyaukse district
and repaired the embankment of Meiktila lake.
Laukpya, lord of Myaungmya, hated his nephew Razadarit, and
when Razadarit succeeded to the throne of Pegū in 1385, Laukpya
wrote to Minkyiswasawke offering to hold Pegů as a vassal if Minky-
iswasawke would help him to oust Razadarit. This started a war
between Upper and Lower Burma which lasted till 1422. The
fighting was almost entirely in the Delta and probably the war
was a war of migration, Shān saturation of Upper Burma being
sufficiently complete for Āva to swarm down on Pegū. The Burmese
advance base was Prome, and their usual line of advance was down
the Hlaing river to Dāgon (Rangoon), sometimes with another
string of levies going down the Sittang valley from Toungoo. With
them marched contingents from allied states, Mohnyin, Kale, and
Yawnghwe ; indeed, the Talaing chronicles sometimes refer to the
invaders as simply 'the Shāns. ' Their total strength would usually
be some 12,000 and the advance took place every year or so, both
sides going home for the rains (June-November). The invaders
would sit down in large stockades, and sally forth headhunting and
slave raiding, sometimes besieging Hmawbi, Dalla, Dāgon (Rangoon),
and other towns, or being besieged themselves. Occasionally some
determined leader would bring about a battle, but the casualties
mentioned are seldom a decimal per cent of the numbers engaged,
and it is difficult to avoid the impression that most of the fighting
was of the type not uncommon in mediaeval countries when there
was as much shouting as killing and the wretched villagers were
the chief sufferers.
In addition to raiding the Delta, Āva had to defend herself
against attacks from the Shān hill states and sometimes they tried
to get her to join in their own quarrels. Thus in 1371 the sawbwas
(chiefs) of Kale and Mohnyin each asked Minkyiswasawke to help
oust the other, promising to become tributary in return, but he let
them exhaust each other, and thus secured a nominal supremacy
over both for a few years. But in 1373 Mohnyin raided the frontier
at Myedu in Shwebo district and the king had so much trouble that
in 1383 he sent an embassy to Yunnan. China thereupon graciously
appointed him governor of Āva and ordered Mohnyin to behave,
But Mohnyin in 1393 ravaged up to the walls of Sagaing.
## p. 544 (#594) ############################################
544
[CH.
BURMA A. D. 1287–1531
In 1374 Arakan was distracted with civil war and some of the
people asked Minkyiswasawke to send them a king; he sent them
his uncle, Sawmungyi. Sawmungyi ruled well, and on his death a
few years later the Arakanese asked Minkyiswasawke to select a
successor. Minkyiswasawke sent one of his sons but this son
oppressed the people and soon fled to Āva.
Finding Pyānchs, chief of Toungoo, becoming friendly with Pegū
in 1377, Minkyiswasawke told his brother, the lord of Prome, to
inveigle Pyānchi into a visit and kill him. The king's brother wrote
to Pyānchi : 'Come and marry your son to my daughter. Pyānchi
accepted the invitation and came with his son to Prome where,
during the night, his host did him to death and seized his retinue
with much booty. The king rewarded this exploit with rich presents.
and the chroniclers' who record the incident describe him as a
king with a most upright heart. He died in the odour of sanctity
at the age of 70 and after some palace murders was succeeded by
a younger son, Minhkaung.
Minhkaung (1401--22) had been married by his father to a
daughter presented by the chief of the Maw Shāns during a friendly
mood about the same time as Razadarit put to death his own son,
Ban lawkyantaw. A year later during her first pregnancy, she longed
for strange food from the Delta, and the family asked Razadarit,
though a foe, to send some. Razadarit consulted his ministers and
they perceived that the unborn child was Bawlawkyantaw himself
taking flesh again according to his dying prayer ; they sent mangoes
from Dalla and other food, having bewitched it.
The child, prince Minrekyawswa, born in 1391, was already
campaigning at the age of thirteen; he accompanied the 1404
expedition which, in retaliation for an Arakanese raid on Yaw and
Laungshe in the Pakokku district, marched over to the An Pass and
occupied Launggyet while the raja, Narameikhla, fled to Bengal.
The Burmese left behind as regent Anawrahtaminsaw, to whom next
year
sent a bride aged thirteen, sister to Minrekyawswa,
together with the five regalia (white umbrella, yaktail, crown, sword,
sandals).
In 1406 the Burmese overran Mohnyin and killed the chief ;
China expostulated and they withdrew, as they would doubtless
have done in any case. In 1407 they sent an embassy to Yunnan.
In 1413 the northern Shān state of Hsenni ravaged the Āva villages
was
1 Hmannan, Vol. i, pp. 420, 440.
2 Parker, ' Précis'; Huber, 'Une ambassade chinoise en Birmanie en 1406' in
Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient, 1934.
## p. 545 (#595) ############################################
XXI )
ÅVA AND PEGŰ
545
and sent some prisoners to Pekin, but Minrekyawswa shattered
the Hsenwi host at Wetwin near Maymyo, killing their leader in
single combat. In 1414 Hsenwi again raided Āva at the instigation
of Razadarit, whose envoys travelled viā Chiengmai carrying a con-
siderable weight of gold as an inducement.
Taking advantage of the usual palace troubles which attended
Minhkaung's accession, Razadarit made several raids, and in 1406
he came up the Irrawaddy river. It is characteristic of Burmese
warſare that though he failed to reduce the Burmese garrisons at
Prome, Myede and Pagān, he simply left them in his rear, pressed
on to Sagaing, and camped there, raising the white umbrella and
beating his drums in triumph. There was only the palace guard
in Āva, and although there were plenty of men in the villages, it
was not possible to summon them with the Talaings surrounding
the city. Taken at a loss, Minhkaung called a great council. Nobody
dared speak, for there was nothing to be said. But at last an
eminent monk of Pyinya came forward saying he had eloquence
enough to persuade any king in the universe. Minhkaung con-
sented, and the monk went forth riding a tall elephant with a
golden howdah, attended by 300 thadinthon (fasting elders) robed
in white, 300 old men bearing gifts, and many elephants loaded
with silks and rich presents. They met Razadarit on his great
barge and the monk spoke holy words on the sin of bloodshed
while Razadarit inclined his ear. He could not reduce a walled
town, he could not remain for ever in a hostile country, and he
consented to withdraw; he even rebuked his men for taking the
heads of forty pagoda slaves.
represents him 'as the Ulysses of the host ; brave, cool, and skilful
in the fight ; prudent, wise, and eloquent in council ; pious and
decorous on all occasions ; beloved by his own chiefs and reverenced
by the vassals of the Chauhan. '
Little more that is authentic is known of the history of the
Gahlots or Sesodias until the reign of 'Alā ud-din Khalji, who,
having already captured Ranthambhor from the Chauhāns, be-
sieged and took Chitor in 1303'. The bard's account of this siege
is most inaccurate and misleading. He antedates it by thirteen
years, to a time when ‘Alā-ud-din had not ascended the throne ; he
1 See ante, p. 108.
## p. 525 (#575) ############################################
xx]
SESODIAS OF MEWĀR
525
makes Lachhman Singh, a distant cousin of the ruling prince, Rānā
of Chitor at the time of the siege ; and he makes the fair Padmini,
whom 'Alā-ud-din coveted, the wife of the prince's uncle. These
gross inaccuracies entirely discredit a story improbable in itself, at
variance with known facts, and designed to minimize the disgrace
of the loss of a strong fortress, of treachery on the part of Alā-ud-
din. The facts were that Ratan Singh was Rānā of Chitor, and that
Lachhman Singh, Rānā of Sesoda, commanded the fortress on his
behalf. Their common ancestor was Karan Singh, Rāwal of Chitor,
from whom Ratan Singh was ninth and Lachhman Singh eleventh
in descent. Ratan Singh was apparently in the fortress when it
was besieged, but, though the rite of jauhar is said to have been
performed and Lachhman Singh and eight thousand other Rajputs
fell, he was taken alive and carried off to Delhi. The fair Padmini
did not perish in the fire, as related by the bard, but lived to be
the subject of negotiation between her husband and his captor, and
the object of the bard's fiction appears to be the concealment of
Ratan Singh's readiness to obey the ancient maxim which permits
a Rājput to surrender his wife in order to preserve his land.
‘Ala-ud-din left Māldeo, Raja of Jālor, whom he had defeated
and who had sworn fealty to him, in command of Chitor, and the
towns of Mewār were held by Muslim garrisons, and the survivors
of the Sesodias, and those who remained faithful to them took
refuge at Kelwārā! , in the heart of the Arāvalli Mountains, and
from this stronghold harried the lands of Mewār. Māldeo was
shortly afterwards relieved of the command of Chitor, and Khizr
Khān, the eldest son of ‘Ala-ud-din, was appointed in his place, but
after the rescue of Ratan Singh'Alā-ud-din removed Khizr Khan
and appointed Arsi, or Ar Singh, to the command. Arsi was, ac-
cording to the Hindu legend, the elder son of Ajai Singh, Rānā of
Chitor, and, according to the Muslim chronicles, sister's son to
Ratan Singh. The bards do not mention Arsi's appointment to the
command of the fortress, but the Muslim historians say that on
being appointed he swore fealty to 'Alā-ud-din, who by this means
sowed discord among the Rajputs, some of whom remained faithful
to Ratan Singh, while others submitted to Arsi. The history of
Chitor at this time is hopelessly confused, owing to the silence of
the Muslim historians and the discrepancies between the Hindu
legends and the few facts known. It is certain, however, that Chitor
was recovered by the Rājputs shortly after this time, and that
Hamir, or Hamira Singh, was the hero of the enterprise. The pre-
1 In 25° 7'N. and 73° 36'E. 2 See ante p. 111,
## p. 526 (#576) ############################################
526
[ch.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDJA
cise degree of relationship between Hamir and the Rānā is uncertain.
According to the bards he was the son of Arsi, the elder son of Ajai
Singh, but it seems probable that he was the grandson of Ratan
Singh. The bards, in recording the recovery of Chitor, assign no
date to it, but assert that it occurred in the reign of 'Mahmūd
Khalji of Delhi,' a king unknown to history. Elsewhere to Rajputs
are said to have recovered Chitor about 1312, four years before the
death of 'Alā-ud-din, who reigned until 1316, to have thrown the
Muhammadan officers from the ramparts, and to have asserted their
independence, but from an inscription at Chitor it appears that the
fort was not recovered until the time of Muhammad Tughluq, who
reigned from 1325 to 1351. According to native annals the ‘Mahmud
Khaljī in whose reign the fort was taken by Hamir was marching to
recover it when he was met, defeated, and captured by the Rānā,
who imprisoned him for three months at Chitor, and would not
liberate him until he had surrendered Ajmer, Ranthambhor, Nāgaur,
and Sui Sopar, with five millions of rupees and five hundred
elephants. No Muslim king of Delhi was ever a prisoner in Chitor,
or ever surrendered the fortresses mentioned to a Rānā of Chitor,
and the story appears to be a clumsy but wilful adaptation of the
defeat and capture of Mahmūd Khalji II of Mālwa by Sangrama
about 200 years after this time. Hamir's reputation stands in need of
so much manipulation of history. His reign was long and glorious.
He lived until 1364, recovered all the dominions of his ancestors, and
laboured to restore their prosperity.
He was succeeded by his son Kshetra, or Khet Singh, who ex-
tended the dominions of his house and is credited by the bards with
a victory over the Mughul emperor Humāyān, considerably more
than a century before the latter's birth. He was slain in a family
brawl in 1382, and was succeeded by his son Laksh Singh, or Lākhā.
He conquered the mountainous region of Merwara and destroyed
its chief stronghold, Bairātgarh, on the site of which he built
Badnor, but of greater importance than this conquest was his dis-
covery of the mines at Jāwar, sixteen miles south of Udaipur city,
in territory taken by his father from the Bhils. These produced
lead, zinc, and some silver, and the wealth thus acquired enabled
him to rebuild the temples and palaces destroyed by 'Alā-ud-din,
and to build dams to form reservoirs or lakes for irrigation. Lākhā
also defeated the Sānkhla Rājputs of Nagarchal, a district lying in
the north of the present State of Jaipur, but the bards are not con-
1 In 25° 50' N, and 74° 17' E.
## p. 527 (#577) ############################################
xx ]
RĀTHORS EXPELLED FROM MEWĀR
527
tent with these exploits, and credit him with a victory over an
imaginary Muhammad Shāh Lodi of Delhi.
Lākhā's eldest son, Chonda, was to have been betrothed to the
daughter of Ranmall the Rāthor, but being annoyed by an innocent
pleasantry of his father, which he regarded as indelicate, refused
to accept Ranmall's offer of his daughter, and, as it could not be
rejected without giving grave offence, Lākhā himself accepted it,
but insisted that Chonda should relinquish his right to the suc-
cession in favour of any issue which might be born of the Rāthor
lady. He agreed and Lākhā was succeeded, on his death in 1397,
by his son Mokalji, aged five, for whom Chonda acted as regent
until, incensed by the unjust suspicions of the child's mother, he
retired from the kingdom. The bards are at fault regarding his
destination, which they give as Māndū, the capital of the Muslim
kingdom of Mālwa, while they place the grant of land which he
received in the west of the peninsula of Kāthiāwār, which was never
included in the kingdom. On Chonda's departure the rapacious
Rāthor kinsmen of the young Rānā's mother flocked into the state.
Her brother Jodha, who afterwards founded Jodhpur, came first,
but was soon followed by their father, Ranmall, with a large con-
tingent of that clan. They murdered Raghudeva, the younger
brother of Chonda, and their designs on the throne were so evident
that the mother, trembling for her child's liſe, begged Chonda to
return. He obeyed the summons, and promised to join her and the
young Rānā on the Diwali festival, the feast of lamps, at Gosunda,
seven miles south of Chitor. Chonda and his band obtained ad-
mission to Chitor in the guise of neighbouring chieftains who had
assembled to escort their prince to his capital. They overpowered
the garrison, slew Rāo Ranmall and a large number of the Rāthors,
and would have slain Jodha, had he not saved himself by flight.
Chonda pursued him, occupied Mandor, then the Rāthor capital,
which was held by the Sesodias for twelve years, and annexed the
fertile district of Godwār, which adjoined Mewar.
Jodha Rāthor was a wanderer for seven years, but eventually
succeeded in assembling a force of Rājputs of his own and other
tribes, and in expelling the Sesodias from Mandor, where the two
sons of Chonda were slain.
Mokal's reign was not distinguished by any feats of arms. The
bards attribute to him a victory over the king of Delhi, but no
contemporary king of Delhi was in a position to attack ibe Rānā
of Chitor, and if there is any foundation for the bard's story Mokal
must be suspected of refusing an asylum to Mahmūd, the last of
## p. 528 (#578) ############################################
528
[ch.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
the Tughluq dynasty, when he was fleeing from Deihi after his
defeat by Tīmūr. Mokal was assassinated in 1433 by two of his
uncles, natural sons of his grandfather, they having interpreted an
innocent question put by him as a reflection on their birth. He
was succeeded by his son Kumbha, one of the greatest of the princes
of Chitor, a soldier, a poet, a man of letters, and a builder to whom
Mewār owes some of her finest monuments. The temples of Kumbha
Sham at Mount Ābū and Rishabhadeva in the Sadri pass, 'leading
from the western descent of the highlands of Mewār, 'still stand as
memorials of his devotion. 'Of eighty-four fortresses for the defence
of Mewār, thirty-two were erected by Kūmbha. Inferior only to
Chitor is that stupendous work called after him’ Kūmbhalgarh,
'the fort of Kumbha. ' He captured Nāgaur and gained many suc-
cesses over his enemies in the intestinal feuds of the Rājputs, but
the ascription to him of a great victory over Mahmud I of Mālwa,
whom he is said to have taken prisoner, and to have released after
six months of captivity, is an error. Kümbha was not fortunate in
his campaigns against Mahmūd I, which have been described in
Chapter xiv, and if the Pillar of Victory' at Chitor does indeed
describe victories over that king it resembles the bardic chronicles.
Mewār's victory over Mālwa was gained by Sangrama, Kumbha's
grandson, over Mahmud II of Mālwa, whom he defeated and took
prisoner near Gāgraun in 1517. Kūmbha was stabbed to death in
1468, after a reign of thirty-five years, by his son Uda, but the
patricide was attacked and defeated by his brother Rāimall, and
is said to have fled to Delhi, and to have offered a daughter in
marriage to the Muslim king as the price of his aid in seating him
on his throne, but no mention is made by Muslim historians either
of this event or of a subsequent Muhammadan invasion of Mewār
described by the bards, and Buhlul Lodi, who was then reigning at
Delhi, was otherwise too deeply engaged to embark on such a cam-
paign. Uda is said to have been struck by lightning and killed, as
he was leaving the king's presence at Delhi, but however this may
be, no more is heard of him, and Rāimall kept the throne. He was
a warlike prince, but he certainly did not, as recorded in the Rājput
annals, carry on an interminable strife with Ghiyās-ud-din Khalji
of Mālwa, a slothful and unwarlike prince who hardly ever left his
palace, but it is not improbable that Rāimall raided the frontiers
of Mālwa.
He had three sons, Sangrama or Sangā, Prithvi Rāj, and Jaimall,
whose ambition bred bitter strife between them until Sangrama
withdrew from Mewār and lived in concealment to avoid the violence
## p. 529 (#579) ############################################
XX ]
BATTLE OF KHĀNUA
529
of Prithvi Rāj, and Prithvi Rāj was banished. Jaimall was now re.
garded as the heir, but in attempting to gain access of the damsel
whom he was to marry was slain by her indignant father, and
Prithvi Rāj was recalled from banishment and gained the hand of
the maiden on whose account his brother had been slain. Another
claimant to the throne arose in the person of Surajmall, the cousin
of the three princes, but Prithvi Rāj defeated him and drove him
from Mewār, and his great-grandson, Bika, founded the Partābgarh.
Deolia state. Prithvi Rāj was afterwards pois ned by his brother-in-
law, Jaimall of Sirohi; whose title to Ābū had been confirmed by his
marriage, and whom Prithvi Rāj had punished for ill treating his
sister ; and on Rāimall's death in 1508 his eldest son, Sangrama,
'
succeeded him without opposition.
Sangrama, destined to fall on the field of battle, was one of the
greatest of the princes of Chitor. "Eighty thousand horse, seven
Rajas of the highest rank, nine Rāos, and one hundred and four
chieftains bearing the titles of Rāwal and Rāwat, with five hundred
war elephants, followed him into the field. The princes of Mārwār
and Amber did him homage, and the Rāos of Gwalior, Ajmer, Sikri,
Rāisen, Kālpi, Chanderi, Bundi, Gāgraun, Rāmpura, and Ābû served
him as tributaries or held of him in chief? . ' Sangrama, like some
of his predecessors, is credited with victories for which there is no
historical warrant over the king of Delhi, Ibrāhim Lodī, but he
profited by the weakness and distractions of his enemies to extend
and secure his frontiers, and it was he who, as already described,
defeated and captured Mahmūd II of Mālwa, whose army contained
a contingent placed at his disposal by the Sultan of Gujarāt, so that
the victor was able to boast that he had defeated the allied forces
of two Muslim kings.
Sangrama had been in communication with Bābur while the
latter was still at Kābul, and had agreed, in the event of his invading
India, to attack Agra while he attacked Delhi, but had failed
10 fulfil his promise hoping, apparently, either that both Bābur
and Ibrāhīm Lodi would be destroyed or that the victor would be
so exhausted as to afford him an opportunity of establishing his
supremacy and restoring Hindu rule in Northern India. Not content
with failing to aid Bābur, he assembled a large army to attack him,
and began operations by besieging Bayāna. Bābur marched to the
relief of the fortress, and Sangrama raised the siege and marched
1 Tod, i, 348, 349. This account, based on the statements of the bards, is
somewhat highly coloured.
2 Sec ante, pp. 368. 369.
C,H. I. III.
34
## p. 530 (#580) ############################################
530
( CH.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
to Khānua, near Sikri, where the fate of Northern India was decided.
A full account of the battle will be given in the records of Bābur's
reign. Sangrama displayed no eagerness to attack the Muslims, and
according to the Hindu annals the battle was preceded by negotia-
tions, in which Silahdi the Tomār, chief of Räisen, a fief of Mālwa,
but now virtually independent, was employed as theinter mediary.
He is said, on the same authority, to have made a private agree-
ment with Bābur, in pursuance of which he deserted the Hindu
cause and joined the Muslims during the battle, but the extenuation
of defeat by allegations of treachery is as common in Hindu annals
as in those of other nations. The Rājputs suffered a crushing defeat.
Sangrama himself was severely wounded, and Rāwal Udai Singh of
Dungarpur ; Ratan Singh, Rāwat of Salūmbar ; Rāimall Rāthor,
r
grandson and heir of the prince of Mārwār ; Khet Singh and Ratan
Singh of Mertha ; Rāmdās, Rāo of Jālor ; Uja Jhāla ; Gokuldas
Pawār; Mānikchand and Chandrabhān, Chauhāns; and many others
of less note were slain.
Sangrama retired towards Mewāt, resolved not to return to his
capital until he had retrieved his defeat and crushed the invader ;
but his ministers shrank from the discomfort and hardships which
his decision imposed upon them, and he died at Baswa of poison
administered at their instigation.
He was succeeded by Ratan Singh II, his eldest surviving son,
who was secretly affianced to the daughter of the Kachhwāha,
Prithvi Rāj, Rão of Amber, but delayed the marriage ceremony, and
Surajmall, Rão of Būndi of the Hāra clan of the Chauhāns, sought
and obtained her hand in marriage. Sūrajmall and Ratan Singh met
and fought in 1531, when each killed the other, and Vikramāditya
or Bikramājīt succeeded his brother on the throne of Mewār. The
new Rānā was arrogant, passionate, and vindictive, and alienated
his nobles, and the cavaliers of Mewār, by his preference for the
society of wrestlers and athletes and for the infantry of his army,
which he devleoped at the expense of his cavalry. An open rupture
occurred between the prince and his nobles, and his cavalry refused
to perform their duties. Matters had reached this stage when Sultān
Bahādur of Gujarāt marched against Bikramājīt, then encamped
at Loicha, in the Bundi territory. The feudal forces of the state
deserted their sovereign and marched off to defend Chitor and the
infant Udai Singh, posthumous son of Sangrama. Bahādur gained
an easy victory over the pāiks, or foot-soldiers of Mewār', and turned
towards Chitor, to the defence of which the prince of Būndi, the
1 See ante, p. 339.
## p. 531 (#581) ############################################
xx]
JĀDONS OF JAISALMER
531
Rāos of Jālor and Ābū, and many chiefs from all parts of Rājasthān
hastened. The siege has been described in Chapter XII. Chitor
fell in 1531, and became for a short time a possession of the kingdom
of Gujarāt, but Udai Singh, who had been crowned during the siege,
was carried off into safety by Surjan, prince of Būndi. There is no
truth in the Rājput story of the dispatch of the rākhi to Humāyūn
by the young Rānā's mother, and of the latter's chivalrous response,
for though he had received gross provocation from Bahādur he
punctiliously refrained from attacking him while he was engaged in
warfare against the 'misbelievers'. After the fall of Chitor, however,
Bahādur was compelled to retire before Humāyūn, and Bikramājīt
returned and almost immediately recovered the fortress. He had
learned no wisdom in adversity, and his insolence and arrogance
towards his nobles culminated in a blow inflicted in open court on
Karamchand of Ajmer, his father's protector and benefactor. On
the following day the nobles put the unworthy prince to death and,
dreading the rule of a minor at such a critical period, persuaded
Banbir Singh, natural son of Prithvi Rāj, Sangrama's younger
brother, to mount the throne. Banbir immediately sought the liſe
of the infant, Udai Singh, but he was saved by a faithful nurse, who
carried him off, and, after some vicissitudes, delivered him to Āsā
Sāh, governor of Kümbhalgarh, who ensured his safety by passing
him off as his nephew, and for three years kept the secret of his
presence with him. The rumour at length spread that the son of
Sangrama was at Kumbhalgarh, and the nobles of Mewār
assembled there to do him homage. The pretensions of the bastard,
Banbir, had offended them, and all deserted him. He still held the
capital, but his ministers admitted a thousand of the adherents of
the legitimate prince, and he was deposed, and Udai Singh was
enthroned in 1537.
The foundation of Jaisalmer by Rāwal Jaisal, the Bhāti, has been
mentioned. The Jādons, or Bhātis, yet occupy their home in the
desert. The Rāthors were gaining power in the land of Kher, the
desert of the west, and the Jādons found them troublesome neigh-
bours, rapacious and unscrupulous. Rāwal Chāchakdeo grandson
of Jaisal, who reigned from 1219 to 1241, made preparations to
chastise them, but their leaders conciliated him by giving him a
daughter to wife. Karan Singh I, who reigned from 1241 to 1271,
espoused the cause of a Hindu living near Nāgaur, whose only
daughter had been abducted by Muzaffar Khān, the Muslim ruler
or governor of that district, and defeated and slew the Khān and
three thousand of his men.
1 Sec ante, p. 330.
34-2
## p. 532 (#582) ############################################
532
[CH.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
The annals of Jaisalmer record a siege of the city by the troops
of 'Alā-ud-din Khalji of Delhi, which lasted for eight years, from
1286 to 1295. 'Alā-ud-din did not ascend the throne of Delhi until
1296, and no such siege as that sung by the bards ever took place.
The account of the performance of the rite of jauhar, and of the
death of 24,000 women in the flames, is detailed and circumstantial.
Three thousaud eight hundred Rājput warriors rushed on the foe;
Mülrāj III, the Jādon chief, and seven hundred of his kin ſell, and
Jaisalmer was occupied by a Muslim garrison which, after holding
the place for two years, dismantled it and retired.
It is impossible to connect this legend with any historical event,
but it may possibly be a wilful perversion of the defeat of the
Já dons by the Rāthors, for the annals proceed to relate that after
the retirement of the Muslim garrison Māloji Rāthor, chief of Mewa,
made preparations for occupying and colonizing the deserted city,
but was expelled by the Bhāti chiefs, Dūda and Tilak Sirgh, the
former of whom was elected Rāwal, and reigned from 1295 to 1306.
The bards of Jaisalmer, no whit inferior to those of other states in
imagination, thus describe the end of Dūda's reign, 'He even ex-
tended his raids to Ajmer, and carried off the stud of Firūz Shāh
from the Anasāgar (lake), where they were accustomed to be
,
watered. This indignity provoked another attack upon Jaisalmer,
attended with the same disastrous results. Again the sakha was
performed, in which sixteen thousand females were destroyed ; and
Dūda, with Tilak Singh and seventeen hundred of the clan, fell in
battle, after he had occupied the gaddi ten years. This statement
is quoted merely in order to display the shameless mendacity of the
bardic annals. Firūz Shāh was Jalāl-ud-din Firuz Khalji, the uncle
and predecessor of 'Alā-ud-din, who is said to have taken Jaisalmer
in the previous year. It may be one more perversion of a defeat at
the hands of the Rāthors.
Jaisalmer was again restored by Ghar Singh, who is said to have
received it in fee from the king of Delhi for services rendered
against Tīmūr, who did not invade India until nearly a century
aſter this time, but if any such services were rendered the occasion
was perhaps, as conjectured by Lt. Col. Tod, one of the many
irruptions of the Mughuls which took place at this period. Ghar
Singh was assassinated in 1335, and was succeeded by his adopted
son, Kehar Singh. Kehar Singh's third son, Kailan, involved the
Jaisalmer state in hostilities with the kingdom of Multān by estab-
lishing himself on the northern bank of the Sutlej, where he is said
## p. 533 (#583) ############################################
xx)
GWALIOR
533
to have founded the town of Kahror. The presence of the Bhātīs
on the Multān side of the river was resented, and Chāchakdeo, who
succeeded to Jaisalmer about 1448, is said to have resided at Marot
in order the more readily to repel raids on his territories from the
direction of Multān. He is credited in the annals of the state with
two victories over the Muslim kings of Multān, besides others over
the Dhundīs, the Rāthors, and even the Khokhars of the Punjab.
He is said to have lost his life in battle with the king of Multan,
but the native annals a most untrustworthy guide, are the only
authority for his exploits. Even these fail us after Chāchakdeo's
reign, and until the time of the Mughul emperors record nothing
but a bare list of names.
The famous fortress of Gwalior was held, at the time of Mahmūd's
incursions into India, by Kachhwāha Rājputs, probably feudatories
of the Chandels of Jijhoti. Mahmūd's siege of the fortress in 1022
has already been noticed, and its strength at that time may per.
haps be gauged by the easy terms on which he raised the siege.
About 1128 the Parihār Rājputs ousted the Kachhwāhas, a scion of
whom established himself in the neighbourhood of Amber. Qutb-
ud-din Aibak captured the fortress, but it was recovered during
the feeble reign of his son, Ārām Shāh, by the Parihār Birbal, or
Māl Deo, whose son, Mangal Bhava Deo, was holding it in 1232,
when Iltutmish attacked it. An account of his siege and capture
of the place has already been given,3 It remained in the hands of
the Muslim until after Timūr's invasion, and was captured, when
the kingdom of Delhi fell to pieces, by the Tomār, Har Singh, and
was successfully defended by his son Bhairon against the attacks of
Mallū in 1492 and 1403". The sieges of Gwalior in 1416, 1427, and
1432 by kings of the Sayyid dynasty were rather expeditions for
the purpose of collecting taxes, or tribute, then serious attempts
to capture the fortress, and the raja could always rid himself of
the invaders by a payment on account, and an illusory promise to
make regular payments in future. In 1423 Hūshang Shāh of Mālwa
attacked the fortress, but raised the siege when the Sayyid, Mubārak
Shāh, marched to its relief.
During the protracted contests in the reign of Buhlūl Lodi
between the kingdoms of Delhi and Jaunpur Man Singh of
Gwalior espoused the cause of the latter, and gave an asylum
to its last king, Husain Shāh, when he was fleeing before his
enemies.
1 In 29° 37' N. and 71° 56' E.
2 See an! e, p. 22,
3 See ante, p. 55.
4 Sec ante, p. 202.
## p. 534 (#584) ############################################
534
(CH.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
1
Mān Singh profited by the striſe between the Muslims to
extend his dominions, and when Sikandar Lodi, provoked by his
protection of a fugitive rebel, invaded them in 1505 and the follow-
ing years, he did not venture to attack Gwalior itself, but contented
himself with reducing Mandrãel, Utgir, and other fortresses of less
importance, and was eventually recalled from this campaign by
other affairs, but in 1518 his son, Ibrāhīm Lodī, incensed by the
raja's protection of the pretender, Jalal Khān, besieged his
capital, and Vikramāditya or Bikramājīt, the son and successor of
Mān Singh, was compelled to surrender.
Raja Mān Singh, who reigned from 1486 to 1517, enriched
Gwalior with the great palace which crowns the eastern face of
the rock, and earned a name as a patron of music and musicians.
The famous singer, Tân Sen, and the best musicians and singers at
Akbar's court had been trained in the Gwalior school.
The Kachhwāhas of Amber and Jaipur claim descent from the
ancient rajas of Gwalior, of that tribe. Tej Karan, known as Dulha
Rāi, or the Bridegroom prince, who was eighth in descent from
Vajradāman, the first Kachhwāha prince of Gwalior, left that city,
for some undetermined
reason, in charge of his sister's son, a
Parihār, who usurped his throne. Tej Karan married the daughter
of the Bargújar Rājput chief of Daosa, and inherited that princi-
pality, then known as Dhundhār, from the Dhūnd river. Maidal
Rāo, Tej Karan's grandson, took the fortress of Amber from the
Mina chief Bhāto, and made it his capital. Maidal's great-grandson,
Pajūn, married the sister of Prithvi Rāj of Ajmer and Delhi, and
was killed with his brother-in-law at the second battle of Tarāori.
The Amber state, as it was known after the establishment of that
town as the capital, was of little importance until the reign of
Humāyūn. Towards the end of the fourteenth century Udai Karan,
prince of Amber, added the Shekhāwati district to his dominions,
but his house did not otherwise specially distinguish itself.
Gondwāna, the forest region between Berar on the west and
Orissa on the east, was sparsely populated by the Gonds, Dravidians
who had probably migrated northwards from the Deccan, but in
the eleventh century the nothern and eastern tracts of this region,
which were known as Chedi, were ruled by two families of Haihaya
Bans Rājputs who were probably, like the Chandels of Jijhoti,
Hinduized Gonds. One family, which retained its possessions until
it was ousted by the Marāthās, had its capital at Ratanpur, in
the present Bilāspur District; and the other at Tripuri, or Tewar,
1 22° 17' N. , 82° 11' E.
## p. 535 (#585) ############################################
xx)
GOND KİNGDOMS
535
a
about six miles from Jubbulpore. The Haibayas were also known
as the Kālachurīs. Those of Tewar disappeared towards the end of
the twelfth century, being supplanted, as is commonly believed, by
Bāghels of Rewa, but according to Gond tradition by a Gond hero
named Jādū Rāi, said to be the ancester of the Gond dynasty which
was certainly reigning in that region, with its capital at Garha, not
long after that time.
Tradition records the existence of a dynasty of Gāoli, or cowherd
race, of whom nothing certain is known, at Deogarh, the old fortress
which stands twenty-four miles south-west of Chhindwāra. This
dynasty ended with the twin brothers Ransür and Ghansūr, who
reigned jointly, and who befriended a Gond named Jātba. Jātba
eventually slew his master and founded the Gond dynasty which
reigned at Deogarh. The only indication of a date in the legend is
the record of an imaginary visit paid by Akbar to Jātba, and even
tradition is silent as to the history of his successors, of whom hardly
anything is known until the time of Bakht Buland, who was reigning
at Deogarh at the latter end of the seventeenth century.
Rather more than sixty miles west of Deogarh stands the fortress
of Kherla, the foundation of which is attributed to a Rājput
dynasty, whose capital it remained for a long period. The last of
the line, Jaitpal, is said to have been killed ofter a twelve years'
siege by the army of the king of Delhi. No such siege is recorded
by the Muslim historians, but it is possible that the officials first
placed in Berar by 'Alā-ud-din Khalji extinguished the Rājput
dynasty and built the present fort, which appears to be of Muham-
mādan construction. It fell afterwards, probably during the rebel-
lion of the Deccan in the latter years of Muhammad Tughluq's
reign, into the hands of Gonds, who established a dynasty there.
Gond legend assigns a high degree of antiquity to the dynasty
of Southern Gond wāna, the original capital of which is said to have
been Sirpur, near the Pranhitā River, in the "Ādīlābād District of
the Nizām's dominions. Ballālpur, higher up the river and on the
opposite bank, was next selected as the capital, which was moved
almost immediately to the newly founded city of Chānda', where
the Gonds reigned until the dynasty was extinguished by the
Marāthās.
There were thus, when Muslim rule was established both in
Northern and in Southern India, four Gond kingdoms in Gondwāna
northern kingdom with its capital at Garha; two central
kingdoms with their capital at Deogarh and Kherla ; and a
southern kingdom with its capital at Chānda, 'There
1 19° 57' N. , 78° 58' E.
>
-а
are
no
3
## p. 536 (#586) ############################################
536
[CH.
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
materials for a detailed history of these kingdoms during the
period of which we treat. The northern kingdom, known to the
Muslims as Garha-Katanga, from its capital and another town, and
afterwards as Garha Mandla, was extended by Sangram Shāh, who
succeeded about 1480, and developed the little state, consisting
of four districts lying about Garha and Mandla, into a kingdom
containing fifty-four districts, by annexing large portions of the
Narbada valley, the districts now called Sangor and Dāmoh, and
the present state of Bhopāl. He built the fortress of Chaurāgarh,
he enriched his capital with buildings, and he obtained the fair
Durgāvati, daughter of the Chandel raja of Mahoba, as a bride
for his son Dalpat, who succeeded him.
The alliance suggests the
origin of the Chandels.
Durgāwati, as regent for her son, Bir Narāyan, earned undying
fame as the defender of his inheritance against the Muslim ruler of
Mālwa and against Akbar, though she perished in the Mughul's
unprovoked attack on the kingdom.
of the history of the neighbouring kingdom of Deogarh nothing
certain, as has been said, is known until the reign of Bakht Buland,
late in the seventeenth century.
OF Kherla more is known. The fortress is situated near the
highway between Hindūstān and the Deccan, and could not fail to
attract attention. The Muslim kings of Deccan refrained from
molesting this state until, in 1398, Narsingh, the Gond raja, taking
advantage of Firuz Shāh's preoccupation with Vijayanagar, and
instigated by the Muslim rulers of Mālwa and Khāndesh, invaded
and ravaged Berar. He was driven out of that province and obliged
to swear ſealty to Firūz. Subsequent relations between the three
states, the Deccan, Mālwa, and Kherla, have been described in
Chapter xv. In the reign of Ahmad Shāh, brother and successor
of Firūz, it was agreed that the allegiance of Kherla should be
transferred to Mālwa, and the king of Mālwa afterwards captured
the fortress and exterminated the Gond dynasty. Kherla appears
in the Āin-i. Akbari as a district in the province of Berar.
of the southern kingdom, Chānda, yet more is known, but what
little certain knowledge we possess is disfigured and obscured by a
rank overgrowth of fiction. Despite the claims to antiquity made
in the legends of this kingdom it seems to have risen on the ruins
of the Vākātaka dynasty, whose capital was probably at Bhāndak,
a village near Chānda, at the end of the eleventh or beginning of
the twelfth century, and the names of nineteen kings who reigned
between that time and 1751, when the Marāthas occupied the
kingdom, have been preserved.
a
## p. 537 (#587) ############################################
xx]
KINGDOM OF CHĀNDA
537
The first was Bhim Ballār, or Ballal, Singh, whose capital was
at Sirpur and his chief stronghold Manikgarh, in the hills of west of
that town. His grandson was Hir Singh, who induced the Gonds
to cultivate the land and introduced a primitive land revenue
system. Hic Singh's grandson, Dinkar Singh, was a patron of
learning, and was succeeded by his son, Rām Singh, a just ruler
and a successful soldier, who extended the frontiers of his kingdom.
Rām Singh was succeeded by his son, Surja Ballāl Singh, 'one of
the most romantic figures of old Gondwāna. ' Owing to the absence
of any written record it is impossible to say precisely at what period
he reigned. The early part of the fifteenth century has been as-
signed as his date, but it appears to be at least as likely that he
lived early in the fourteenth century. The romantic circumstances
of his supposed visit to Delhi need not be recorded here, but it is
probable that he visited that city, though the fact has not been
deemed worthy of mention by any trustworthy historian. From
the absence of any such mention it may be inferred that the Gond
story of his rendering the king of Delhi an important service by
capturing the fortress of a Rājput named Mohan Singh which the
Muslim officers had failed to take is fiction, as is also the story that
the king rewarded him for the exploit with the title of Shāh, which
no Muslim king of Delhi would have conferred. It is certain, how-
ever, that Surja Ballāl and all who succeeded him on the throne of
Chānda used this title, in the form 'Sāh,' and it appears that Surja
Ballāl, who was known after his visit to Delhi as Sher Sāh Ballāl
Sāh, assumed it in imitation of the king of Delhi. Surja Ballāl
was succeeded by his son Khāndkia Ballāl Sāh, who suffered from
some disease which caused tumours and swellings on his body.
Seeking a healthier capital than Sirpur he built the town of Bal.
lālpur on the opposite side of the river. While hunting he acci-
dentally discovered near the site on which Chānda stands a pool
of water in a river bed, having drunk and washed himself
in the water, ſound his disease alleviated. It was decided that the
spot was the resting place of the great god Achaleshwar, the
'
Immovable One,' and Khāndkia, having been perfectly restored to
health by further use of the water, built a new capital near the
site, naming it Chandrapur, or Chānda (the Moon City). Its walls
were completed by his son and successor, Hir Sāh, who induced or
compelled his subjects to undertake the cultivation of fixed holdings
and constructed many reservoirs for irrigation. His revenue from
the land was assessed on the ploughs employed. He also built the
citadel and the palace of Chānda, parts of which still stand. Of
Hir Sāh it is recorded that he paid no tribute to any foreign king,
>
## p. 538 (#588) ############################################
538
NATIVE STATES OF NORTHERN INDIA
(CH. XX
from which statement it may be inferred that his predecessors had
paid tribute, probably to the Bahmani kings of the Deccan, but
the relations between that kingdom and the southern Gond state
are most obscure. The king of Chānda were not, like those of
Kherla, drawn into the disputes between the kings of the Deccan
and their northern neighbours, and seem wisely to have avoided
such entanglements; but when Firūz Shāh, the eighth king of the
Bahmani dynasty, marched northwards, in 1399 or 1400, to punish
Narsinga of Kherla for having invaded Berar, the fortress of Māhūr
was held by a 'misbeliever,' probably a Gond from Chānda who
had joined Narsing ; but he was permitted to retain the command
of the fortress a governor on behalf of Firūz, on making submis-
sion? . The same governor was again in rebellion in 1424, and in the
following year Ahmad Shāh, the successor of Fīrūz, dealt with him in
the manner already described. Continuing his march northwards
Ahmad found the fortress of Kalam in the hands of a Gond chief,
whom he slew or expelled, and then led a raid into Gondwāna. He
probably crossed the Wardha on this occasion, and, if so, this is the
only recorded instance of the invasion of the Chānda kingdom by
a Muslim king.
Hir Sāh was succeeded by his two sons, Bhima and Lokbā, who
reigned jointly until they were succeeded by Kārn Sāh, the son of
one of them, who embraced and propagated the Hindu religion
and substituted the regular administration of justice for the primi-
tive system under which each man avenged his own wrongs.
Kārn Sāh was succeeded by his son, Bābāji Ballāl Sāh, who
recovered the fortress of Bairāgarh and is mentioned in the Āin-i.
Akbari3 as being able to place in the field 1000 horse and 40,000
foot. He paid no tribute.
The Gond language possesses no written characters, and a high
standard of civilization could hardly exist at the courts of the four
Gond kingdoms, but the kings were not mere barbarians. Their
architecture proves their taste, and if they possessed no native
literature many were enlightened enough to
to encourage Hindu
letters. The northern kingdom, Garha-Mandla, was rich, the rajas
of Deogarh and Kherla were warlike, but none could compare with
the greatness of the southern kingdom. Unlike the other Gond
kingdoms, the house of Chānda seems to have had a long succession
of good and intelligent rulers, who resisted the natural temptations
to inner striſe and intrigue which brought destruction to the other
kingdoms'.
1 See ante, p. 390.
2 See antte, p. 399.
3 Vol. ii, pp. 230, 232.
## p. 539 (#589) ############################################
CHAPTER XXI
BURMA A. D. 1287–1531. THE PERIOD OF
SNĀH IMMIGRATION
.
The Great Khān accepted the conquest of Pagān, described
in volume 11, as an accomplished fact, and for the next two and a
half centuries the princelets who ruled the various parts of Burma
frequently held authority under the Chinese seal. Technically they
were Chinese governors ; actually they were the native chieftains
who would have ruled there in any case and they did as they
pleased.
Since the Nanchao barrier states were henceforth the Chinese
province of Yunnan, the road lay open and there was no longer
any impediment to communication with China. That being so, we
should expect a inarked advance in Burmese culture. What we
actually witness is a decline. The great palace vanished, and in
its stead were several squabbling little courts of which the most
important were Āva, Pegū, and Toungoo. Religion languished,
and though pagodas continued to be built, none of them can com-
pare with even the lesser temples of Pagān. When at length the
darkness lifts, it is from the opposite direction to China that two
rays of light appear: one a religious revival from Ceylon, the other
the birth of vernacular literature.
Yet it was not the Tartars who destroyed the overlordship of
Pagān. They did not wish to upset existing conditions, and gave
the dynasty every support in re-establishing itself. It was washed
away by a wave of migration which was beyond the control of a
purely dynastic government. What we are now to witness is not
so much a series of internal squabbles as a racial movement affect-
ing all Indo-China : the Shāns swarm south, east, and west. In 1229
they founded the Āhom kingdom of Assam along the Brāhmaputra
river ; about the same time they made themselves felt in Tenas-
serim, and in 1350 they founded the kingdom of Siam-Siam is the
same word as Shān, and she is simply the greatest of Shān states. In
Burma they overran the entire country, swamping Burman and
Talaing alike. To-day they are most numerous race in Indo-
China, numbering eighteen millions? .
1Cochrane, 'The Shāns ; Gazetteer of Upper Burma and the Shān States.
## p. 540 (#590) ############################################
540
( CH.
BURMA A. D. 1287-1531
(a) Ava 1287-1555
Aſter killing his father, Thihathu proceeded to kill such of his
brothers as were in reach, in accordance with that Massacre of the
Kinsmen which convention permitted to a Burmese king at his
accession'. As the Tartars were in occupation of the north, he
went south and tried to establish himself in the Delta, but was
killed whilst besieging Pegū which was held by its rebellious gover-
nor, Tarabya.
The surviving son Kyawswa (1287-98) returned to Pagān, where
he paid annual tribute to China and in 1297 sent his son to receive
investiture from the Emperor himself as prince of the Upper Burma
state. This state, which lasted till 1555, ran from Myedu in Shwebo
district to below Prome, and from Laungshe in Pakokku district to
Kyaukse.
At the same time as he invested Kya wswa, the Emperor sent a
seal to Athinhkaya as prince of Myinsaing in the Kyaukse district ;
Hsenwi had been similarly recognised in 1. 89, and Mohnyinº in
1296. Athinhkaya was the eldest of the Three Shān Brothers (1298-
1324) who now became the real rulers of Upper Burna ; the second
;
was Yazāthinkyan, chief of Mokkayā ; the youngest Thihathu, chief
of Pinle. Their towns, all in the Kyaukse district, command passes
into the Shān hills and were exactly where a chieftain ruling hill
and plain would fix his stronghold - to command the plain and
afford easy escape to his ancestral highlands. They were the sons
of a hill chief who, owing to some feud, had Red to Myinsaing,
where there was already a Shān colony ; his daughter married no
less a person than a son of the Pagān dynasty, so that the family
gained ſavour at court and were entrusted with the administration
of the Kyaukse canals. When the dynasty fell, they had every
temptation to be disloyal, for, being in charge of the great canals
and rice fields, they controlled the food supplies of the palace. In
1298 they plotted with the queen dowager, lured Kyawswa into a
new monastery which they had built, and forced him to take the
robe and dwell there under guard. They then reported to Yunnan
that it had been necessary to dispose him because he was asking for
armed assistance from Chiengmai and had intercepted envoys whom
the new Talaing state of Pegu was sending to Yunnan. Finally they kill-
ed himº; at his death he said :'None of my ancestors was ever executed
1 See Harvey, History of Burma, p. 338. 2Parker, ‘Précis'.
3 He merges with Minrekyawswa to form the Minkyawswa Nai spirit ;
Temple, Thirty Seven Nats, p. 56.
## p. 541 (#591) ############################################
XXI ]
THE THREE SHĀN BROTHERS
541
with the sword. Either throw me into the river or strangle me';
so they strangled and cremated him and cast his remains into the
Irrawaddy? They killed also his son, his monk and principal
followers, and seized the harem.
Survivors of the dynasty appealed to Yunnan. The Yünnan
commandant obtained the Emperor's sanction, and with 12,000
men besieged the Brothers in three walled towns at Myinsaing.
On their walls the Brothers mounted balistae, and in one assault the
Tartars lost 500 men from the arrows blocks of stone, and beams
which rained down on the stormers. Finding the climate hot and
malarious, the Chinese accepted the bribe, 800 taels (63 lb. ) of gold
and 2200 taels (183 lb) of silver, and withdrew to Yunnan after let.
ting their men help on the Kyaukse irrigation works, constructing
the Thindwe canal. This is the end of Chinese interference in
Burma resulting from the expedition of 1287.
Whether Pagān had hitherto been fertile or not? , it was certainly
unfertile now, and the soil of the Myingyan district assumed its
present desolate and barren aspect. Denudation of the forests to
provide fuel for pagoda bricks had doubtless lessened the rainfall, and
extersive irrigation at Kyaukse
at Kyaukse might attract rainfall thither
from Pagān. Crops grow there, but not in such quantity as to
supply a city of 50,000 inhabitants who eat rice. Probably this
was the reason, in addition to the belief that the luck of the site
was exhausted, which now led to the removal of the palace from
Pagān.
There was rice in the Delta but it was far away and the Delta
was now under a hɔstile chief. There was rice in Kyaukse, but the
capital could not be put there, so far from the country's own high-
way, the Irrawaddy. It was necessary to find a site which should
be on the Irrawaddy and accessible to the rice of Kyaukse. The
obvious site was Ava, in the Sagaing district, where the Myitnge
river brought down the grain boats from Kyaukes. But as the
omens were adverse to Āva, Thihathu, the surviving Shān Brother,
in 1312 set up his palace at Pinya, a bad site near by, for which the
omens were favourable.
The Pagān dynasty continued to exist as myosa (governors)
of Pagān until 1369 and then ceased save where it had merged, on
1 For the taboo on shedding royal blood, and the convention whereby princes
were drowned, see Harvey, History of Burma, p. 339.
2 Huber, ‘Fin de la dynastie de Pagan' in Bulletin de l'Ecle Francaise d'Extreine
Orient, 1909.
3 Mekenzie, 'Climate in Burmese History' in Journal of the Burma Research
Society, 1913,
## p. 542 (#592) ############################################
542
[CH.
BURMA A. D. 1287–1531
:
>
the distaff side, with the lineage of the Shān Brothers. The only
specific mention of the Ari' after their overthrow by Anawrahta is
that Sawyun, lord of Sagaing, a son of Thihathu, in 1314 enume.
rated Ari among his armed retainers ; apparently they were like the
warrior abbots of contemporary Christendom.
Even in its limited area the Upper Burma state was loosely knit,
towns such as Sagaing, Sagu and Taungdwingyi doing as they
pleased. The confusion was something more than brigandage : it
was the result of a racial movement, nothing less than the Shān
migration into the plains of Burma. In 1364 the Maw (Mogaung)
Shāns took Sagaing and Pinya, carrying off the princes, the white
elephants, and numbers of the townsfolk. To escape being driven
off in Shān raiders' slave gangs, the population of Upper Burma
took to migrating to Toungoo.
After the Maw Shāns had departed, Thadominbya (1364–8), one
of the Sagaing fansily, killed off such of his kinsmen as stood in his
way there and at Pinya, drained the swamps round Āva, and built
the town. It was usually the Burmese capital for the next five
centuries ; till two generations ago the English, like the Chinese,
referred to Burmah as Āva, and for the Shāns the king of Burma
was to the end 'The Lord of the Golden Palace at Āva'. On his
mother's side Thadominbya was descended from the Three Shān
Brothers, and his father was a Shān notable who claimed descent
from the primitive Pyusawti lineage. His habits were sufficiently
primitive-thus, after killing a Toungoo rebel he ate a meal on the
corpse's chest. Whilst trying to subject Sugu he was seized with
small-pox. As he lay dying, a pagan who had no respect for Buddh.
ism, he told an officer to return to the palace and kill his queen
lest she should pass to his successor. The officer entered the palace
and told her his errand so she then and there married him. As part
of the regalia she had already been queen to four successive chiefs
of Pinya, and her union with the officer raised him to the throne.
The pair massacred the royal kinsmen but the ministers would not
accept them and hawked round the crown until finally Minkyiswas.
awke accepted it.
Minkyiswasawke (1368 - 1401) was descended from the union of
the Shān sister with the son of the Pagān dynasty, and as a child
1 Douroiselle, 'The Ari of Burma and Tantric Buddhism' in Annual Report of the
Archaeological Survey of India, 1915-16.
2 For Maw, Mogaung, Pong, etc. , see Harvey's History of Burma, p. 322.
3 For the custom whereby queens passed to the next king, see Harvey's History of
Burma, p. 324.
## p. 543 (#593) ############################################
XXI ]
THE KINGDOM OF ĀVA
543
he had been carried off into captivity with his father, the lord of
Thayetmyo, when Minhti, king of Arakan, raided it in 1333. On
his release he became thūgyi (village headman) of Amyin in the
Sagaing district and on becoming king he made an Arakanese
monk his primate. He built the Zidaw weir in Kyaukse district
and repaired the embankment of Meiktila lake.
Laukpya, lord of Myaungmya, hated his nephew Razadarit, and
when Razadarit succeeded to the throne of Pegū in 1385, Laukpya
wrote to Minkyiswasawke offering to hold Pegů as a vassal if Minky-
iswasawke would help him to oust Razadarit. This started a war
between Upper and Lower Burma which lasted till 1422. The
fighting was almost entirely in the Delta and probably the war
was a war of migration, Shān saturation of Upper Burma being
sufficiently complete for Āva to swarm down on Pegū. The Burmese
advance base was Prome, and their usual line of advance was down
the Hlaing river to Dāgon (Rangoon), sometimes with another
string of levies going down the Sittang valley from Toungoo. With
them marched contingents from allied states, Mohnyin, Kale, and
Yawnghwe ; indeed, the Talaing chronicles sometimes refer to the
invaders as simply 'the Shāns. ' Their total strength would usually
be some 12,000 and the advance took place every year or so, both
sides going home for the rains (June-November). The invaders
would sit down in large stockades, and sally forth headhunting and
slave raiding, sometimes besieging Hmawbi, Dalla, Dāgon (Rangoon),
and other towns, or being besieged themselves. Occasionally some
determined leader would bring about a battle, but the casualties
mentioned are seldom a decimal per cent of the numbers engaged,
and it is difficult to avoid the impression that most of the fighting
was of the type not uncommon in mediaeval countries when there
was as much shouting as killing and the wretched villagers were
the chief sufferers.
In addition to raiding the Delta, Āva had to defend herself
against attacks from the Shān hill states and sometimes they tried
to get her to join in their own quarrels. Thus in 1371 the sawbwas
(chiefs) of Kale and Mohnyin each asked Minkyiswasawke to help
oust the other, promising to become tributary in return, but he let
them exhaust each other, and thus secured a nominal supremacy
over both for a few years. But in 1373 Mohnyin raided the frontier
at Myedu in Shwebo district and the king had so much trouble that
in 1383 he sent an embassy to Yunnan. China thereupon graciously
appointed him governor of Āva and ordered Mohnyin to behave,
But Mohnyin in 1393 ravaged up to the walls of Sagaing.
## p. 544 (#594) ############################################
544
[CH.
BURMA A. D. 1287–1531
In 1374 Arakan was distracted with civil war and some of the
people asked Minkyiswasawke to send them a king; he sent them
his uncle, Sawmungyi. Sawmungyi ruled well, and on his death a
few years later the Arakanese asked Minkyiswasawke to select a
successor. Minkyiswasawke sent one of his sons but this son
oppressed the people and soon fled to Āva.
Finding Pyānchs, chief of Toungoo, becoming friendly with Pegū
in 1377, Minkyiswasawke told his brother, the lord of Prome, to
inveigle Pyānchi into a visit and kill him. The king's brother wrote
to Pyānchi : 'Come and marry your son to my daughter. Pyānchi
accepted the invitation and came with his son to Prome where,
during the night, his host did him to death and seized his retinue
with much booty. The king rewarded this exploit with rich presents.
and the chroniclers' who record the incident describe him as a
king with a most upright heart. He died in the odour of sanctity
at the age of 70 and after some palace murders was succeeded by
a younger son, Minhkaung.
Minhkaung (1401--22) had been married by his father to a
daughter presented by the chief of the Maw Shāns during a friendly
mood about the same time as Razadarit put to death his own son,
Ban lawkyantaw. A year later during her first pregnancy, she longed
for strange food from the Delta, and the family asked Razadarit,
though a foe, to send some. Razadarit consulted his ministers and
they perceived that the unborn child was Bawlawkyantaw himself
taking flesh again according to his dying prayer ; they sent mangoes
from Dalla and other food, having bewitched it.
The child, prince Minrekyawswa, born in 1391, was already
campaigning at the age of thirteen; he accompanied the 1404
expedition which, in retaliation for an Arakanese raid on Yaw and
Laungshe in the Pakokku district, marched over to the An Pass and
occupied Launggyet while the raja, Narameikhla, fled to Bengal.
The Burmese left behind as regent Anawrahtaminsaw, to whom next
year
sent a bride aged thirteen, sister to Minrekyawswa,
together with the five regalia (white umbrella, yaktail, crown, sword,
sandals).
In 1406 the Burmese overran Mohnyin and killed the chief ;
China expostulated and they withdrew, as they would doubtless
have done in any case. In 1407 they sent an embassy to Yunnan.
In 1413 the northern Shān state of Hsenni ravaged the Āva villages
was
1 Hmannan, Vol. i, pp. 420, 440.
2 Parker, ' Précis'; Huber, 'Une ambassade chinoise en Birmanie en 1406' in
Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme Orient, 1934.
## p. 545 (#595) ############################################
XXI )
ÅVA AND PEGŰ
545
and sent some prisoners to Pekin, but Minrekyawswa shattered
the Hsenwi host at Wetwin near Maymyo, killing their leader in
single combat. In 1414 Hsenwi again raided Āva at the instigation
of Razadarit, whose envoys travelled viā Chiengmai carrying a con-
siderable weight of gold as an inducement.
Taking advantage of the usual palace troubles which attended
Minhkaung's accession, Razadarit made several raids, and in 1406
he came up the Irrawaddy river. It is characteristic of Burmese
warſare that though he failed to reduce the Burmese garrisons at
Prome, Myede and Pagān, he simply left them in his rear, pressed
on to Sagaing, and camped there, raising the white umbrella and
beating his drums in triumph. There was only the palace guard
in Āva, and although there were plenty of men in the villages, it
was not possible to summon them with the Talaings surrounding
the city. Taken at a loss, Minhkaung called a great council. Nobody
dared speak, for there was nothing to be said. But at last an
eminent monk of Pyinya came forward saying he had eloquence
enough to persuade any king in the universe. Minhkaung con-
sented, and the monk went forth riding a tall elephant with a
golden howdah, attended by 300 thadinthon (fasting elders) robed
in white, 300 old men bearing gifts, and many elephants loaded
with silks and rich presents. They met Razadarit on his great
barge and the monk spoke holy words on the sin of bloodshed
while Razadarit inclined his ear. He could not reduce a walled
town, he could not remain for ever in a hostile country, and he
consented to withdraw; he even rebuked his men for taking the
heads of forty pagoda slaves.
