Takshaks," apparently one of the Scytliian tribes ( SERPENT WORSHIP)
Recent investigation has thrown much new height on the origin of the Rajputs. between the Vedic Kshatriya and the Rajput of medieval times which it is now impossible to bridge.
Some clans, with the help of an accommodating bard, may be able to trace their lineage to the Kshatriyas of Buddhist times, who recognized as one of the leading elements in Hindu society, and, in their own estimation, stood even higher than the Brahmans.
But it is now certain that the origin of many clans dates from the Saka or Kushan invasion, which began about the middle of the second century B.C., or more certainly, from that of the Huns who destroyed the Gupta empire about A.D. 480.
The Gurjara tribe adopted Hinduism, and their leaders formed the main stock from which the higher Rajput families sprang. When these new claimants to princely honours accepted the faith and institutions of Brahmanism, the attempt would naturally be made to initiate themselves to the mythical heroes whose exploits are recorded in the MAHABHARATA AND RAMAYANA.
Hence arose the body of legend recorded in The Annals by a fabulous origin from the Sun or Moon is ascribed to two great Rajput branches, a genealogy claimed by other princely families, like the Incas of Peru or the Mikado of Japan.
Or, as in the case of the Rathors of Marwar, an equally fabulous story was invented to link them with the royal house of Kanauj, one of the genuine old Hindu ruling families.
The same feeling lies at the root of the Aeneid of Virgil, the court poet of the new empire. The clan of the emperor Augustus, the lulii, a patriachician family of Alban
origin, was represented as the heirs of lulus, the supposed sou of Aeneas and founder of Alba Longa, thus linking the new Augustan ouse with the heroes of the Iliad.
semi-darkness induced constant serpent worship, which, years ago speculative writers mixed it up with occult philosophies, druidical mysteries, and that pretentious nonsense called the ' Arkite symbolism,'
Author repeatedly speaks of a people whom he calls the " Takshaks," apparently one of the Scytliian tribes.
There is, however, every reason to belive that serpent worship formed an important element in the beliefs of the Scythians, or to suppose that the cult, as we observe it in India, is of other than origin.
The term Kshatriya was, vague meaning, since it did not claim Brahnianical descent. Remember kshatriya is the warrior cult and knowledge is brahmanical
Occasionally a raja might be a Brahman by caste, but the Brahman's place at court was that of a minister rather than that of king."
HOWEVER HERE IT IS TAKEN BY MEMBERS OF THE BANIA OR MERCANTILE CLASS, BECAUSE THE BRAHMANS OF THE DESERT, BY THEIR LACK OF DISCIPLINE OF PRACTICE, HAD ACQUIRED AN VAGUE STATUS, AND WERE ILLITERATE.
Kshatriya or Rajput thus depended on status rather than on descent, and it was therefore possible for foreigners to be introduced into the tribes without any violation of the prejudices of caste, which was then only partially developed.
But as the power of the priesthood increased, it was necessary to disguise this admission of foreigners initiated a convenient fiction.
DESTRUCTION to induce another new script
Hence arose the legend, told in two different forms in The Annals, which describes how,
by a serious act of purification or initiation, under the superintendence of one of the ancient Vedic Risiiis or inspired saints, the " fire-born " septs were created to help the Brahmans in repressing Buddhism, Jainism, or other heresy
REESTABHSHING THE ANCIENT TRADITIONAL HINDU SOCIAL CULTURE , THE TEMPORARY DOWNFALL OF WHICH, UNDER THE STRESS OF FOREIGN INVASIONS, IS CAREFULLY CONCEALED IN THE HINDU SACRED LITERATURE.
This privilege was, we are told, confined to four sects, known as Agnikula
, or ' fire-born '—the PRAMAR, PARIHAR, CHALUKYA OR SOLANKI, AND THE CHAUHAN.
But there is good reason to belive according to author that the Pramar was the only sect which laid claim to this distinction before the time of the poet Chand, who flourished in the twelfth century of our era.
HOWEVER WE DISMISS ALL 5 sects AS THE ORIGINAL AGNIKULA.
That these races, the sons of Agni, were but regenerated, and
converted by the Brahm'ans to fight their battles, the clearest
interpretations of their allegorical history will disclose ;
It was in S. 987 (a.d. 931) that Bhojraj, the last of the Chawaras,
and the Salic law of India were both set aside, to make way
for the young Solanki, Mulraj* who ruled Anhilwara for the space
of fifty-eight years.
During the reign of his son and successor,
Chamimd Rae, Mahmud of Ghazni carried his desolatiag arms into
the kingdom of Anhilwara.
With its wealth he raised those
magnificent trophies of his conquest, among which the ' Celestial Bride ' might have vied with anything ever erected by man as a monument of folly .
The wealth abstracted, as reported in the liistory of the conquerors, by this scourge of India, though deemed incredible, would obtain belief, if the commercial riches of Anhilwara could be appreciated. It was to India what Venice was to Europe, the entrepot of the products of both the eastern and western hemispheres.
It fully recovered the shock given by Mahmud and the desultory wars of his successors ; and we find Siddharaja Jayasingha, the seventh from the founder, at the head of the richest, if not the most warlike, kingdom of India.
Two-and-twenty principalities at one time owned his power, from the Carnatic to the base of the Himalaya Mountains ; but his unwise successor drew upon himself the vengeance of the Chauhan, PrithAviraja, a slip of which race was engrafted, in the person of Kumarapala, on the genealogical tree of the Solankis ; and it is a curious fact that this dynasty of the Balakaraes alone gives us two examples of the Salic law of India being violated.
Kumarapala, installed on the throne of Anhilwara, ' tied round his head the turban of the Solanki.' He became of the tribe into which he was adopted. Kumarapala, as well as Siddharaja, was the patron of Buddhism ; * and the monuments erected under them
and their successors claim our admiration, from their magnificence and the perfection of the arts ; for at no period were they more cultivated than at the courts of AnhUwara.
The lieutenants of Shihabu-d-din disturbed the close of Kumarapal's reign ; and his successor, Balo Muldeo, closed this dynasty in S. 1284 (a.d. 1228), when a new dynasty, called the Vaghela
(descendants of Siddharaja) under BIsaldeo, succeeded.
The dilapidations from religious persecution were repaired ; Somnath, renowned as Delphos of old, rose from its ruins, and the kingdom of the Balakaraes was attaining its pristine magnificence, when,
under the fourth prince, Karandeva, the angel of destruction appeared in the shape of Alau-d-din, and the kingdom of AnhilwAra was annihilated.
The lieutenants of the Tatar despot of Delhi let loose the spirit of intolerance and avarice on the rich cities and fertile plains of Gujarat and Saurashtra.
In contempt of their faith, the altar of an Islamite Darvesh was placed in contact with the shrine of Adinath, on the most accessible of their sacred mounts : the statues of Buddha [the Jain Tirthankaras were thrown down, and the books containing the mysteries of their faith suffered the same fate as the Alexandrian library.
The walls of Anhilwara were demolished ; its foundations excavated, and again filled up with the fragments of their ancient temples.
The remnants of the Solanki dynasty were scattered over the land, and this portion of India remained for upwards of a century without any paramount head, until, by a singular dispensation of Providence, its splendour was renovated, and its foundations rebuilt, by an adventurer of the same race from which the Agnikulas were originally converts,
though Saharan the Tak hid his name and his tribe under his new epithet of Zafar Khan, and as Muzaffar ascended the throne of Gujarat, which he left to his son. This son was Ahmad, who founded Ahmadabad, whose most splendid edifices were built from the ancient cities around it.
Baghels.
—Though the stem of the Solankis was thus uprooted, yet was it not before many of its branches (Sakha), like their own indigenous bar-tree, had fixed themselves in other soils.
The most prominent of these is the Baghela * family, which gave its name to an entire division of Hindustan ; and Bagtielkhand lias now been ruled for many centuries by the descendants of Siddharaja.
Besides Bandhugarh, tliere are minor cliieftainsliips still in Gujarat of the Baghela tribe. Of these, Pethapur and Tharad are the most conspicuous.
One of the chieftains of the second class in Mewar is a Solanki, and traces his line immediately from
Siddharaja : this is the chief of Rupnagar, whose stronghold commands one of the passes leading to Marwar, and whose family annals would furnish a fine picture of the state of border-feuds.
Few of them, till of late years, have died natural deaths.
The Solanki is divided into sixteen branches].
1. Baghela—Raja of Baghelkhand (capital Bandhugarh),
Raos of Pitapur, Tharad, and Adalaj, etc.
2. Birpura—Rao of Lunawara.
3. Bahala—Kalyanpur in Mewar, styled Rao, but serving
the chief of Salumbar.
4. , oil" Baru, Tekra, and Chahir, in Jaisalmer.
5. Kalacha ^ J
6. Langaha—^Muslims about Multan.
7. Togra—-Muslims in the Panjnad.
8. Brika— ,, „
9. Surki—In Deccan.
10. Sarwaria '—Girnar in Saurashtra.
11. Raka—Toda in Jaipur.
12. Ranakia—Desuri in Mewar.
13. Kharara—Alota and Jawara, in Malwa.
14. Tantia—Chandbhar Sakanbari.*
15. Almecha—No land.
16. Kalamor—Gujarat.^
Pratihara or Parihara.—Of this, the last and least of _the Agnikulas, we have not much to say.
The Pariharas never acted a conspicuous part in the history of Rajasthan. They are always discovered in a subordinate capacity, acting in feudal subjection to the Tuars of Delhi or the Chauhans of Aimer ; and the brightest page of their history is the record of an abortive attemi^t of Nahar Rao to maintain his independence against Prithwiraja.
THOUGH A PRITHVIRAJ CHAUHAN A FAILURE, IT HAS IMMORTALIZED HIS NAME, AND GIVEN TO THE SCENE OF ACTION, ONE OF THE PASSES OF THE ARAVALLI, A MERITED CELEBRITY.
Mandor (classically Maddodara) was the capital of the Parihars, and was the chief city of Marwar which owned the sway of this tribe prior to the invasion and settlement of the Rathors. It is placed five miles northward of the modern Jodhpur, and preserves some specimens of the ancient Pali
character, fragments of sculpture and Jain temples.
The Rathor emigrant princes of Kanauj found an asylum with the Parihars. They repaid it by treachery, and Chonda, a name celebrated in the Rathor annals, dispossessed the last of the
Parihars, and pitched the flag of the Rathors on the battlements of Mandor.
The power of the Parihars had, however, been much reduced previously by the princes of Mewar, who not only abstracted much territory from them, but assumed the title of its princes—Rana.^
The Parihara is scattered over Rajasthan, but the existence of independent chieftainship there. At the confluence of the Kuhari, the Sind, and the Chambal, there is a colony of this race, which has given its name to a commune of twenty-four villages, besides hamlets, situated amidst the ravines of these streams.
They were nominally subjects of Sindhia ; but it was deemed requisite for the line of defence along the
Chambal that it should be included within the British demarcation, by which most notorious body of thieves in the annals of Thug history.
The Parihars had twelve subdivisions, of which the chief were the Indha and Sindhal : a few of both are still to be found about the banks of the Luni.
Chawara or Chaura.—This tribe was once renowned in the history of India, though its name is now scarcely known Ti, or only in the chronicles of the bard.
Of its origin - ignorance.
It belongs neither to the Solar nor Lunar race, and consequently
- presume it to be of Scythic origin.
The name is unknown in Hindustan, and is confined, with many others originating from beyond the Indus, to the peninsula of Saurashtra. If foreign to India proper, its establishment must have been at a
remote period, as we find individuals of it intermarrying with the Suryavansa ancestry of the present princes of Mewar, when this family were the lords of Valabhi.
The capital of the Chawaras was the insular Deobandar, on the coast of Saurashtra, and the celebrated temple of Sonmath, with many others on this coast, dedicated to Balnath, or the sun,
is attributed to this tribe of the Sauras,* or worshippers of the sun ; most probably the generic name of the tribe as well as of the peninsula.*
By a natural catastrophe, or as the Hindu superstitious chroniclers will have it, as a punishment for the piracies of the prince of Deo, the element whose privilege he abused rose and overwhelmed his capital. As all this coast is very low, such an occurrence is not improbable ; though the abandonment of Deo
might have been compelled by the irruptions of the Arabians, who at this period carried on a trade with these parts, and the plunder of some of their vessels may have brought this punislimeut
on the Chawaras. That it was owing to some such political catastrophe, we have additional gxounds for beh'ef from the annals of Mewar, which state that its princes inducted the Chawaras into
the seats of the power they abandoned on the continent and peninsula of Saurashtra.
At all events, the prince of Deo laid the foundation of Anhilwara Patan in S. 802 (a.d. 74.6), which henceforth became the capital city of this portion of India, in lieu of Valabhipura, which gave the title of Balakaraes to its princes, the Balhara of the earlier Arabian travellers, and following them, the geographers of Europe."
Vana Raja (or, in the dialects, Banraj) was this founder, and his dynasty ruled for one hundred and eighty-four years, when, as related in the sketch of the Solanki tribe, Bhojraj, the seventh
from the founder, was deposed by his nephew.
It was during this dynasty that the Arabian travellers ^ visited this court, of which they have left but a confused picture. We are not, however, altogether in darkness regarding the Chawara race, as in
the Khuman Raesa, one of the chronicles of Mewar, mention is made of the auxiliaries under a leader named Chatansi, in the defence of Chitor against the first attack on record of the Muhammadans
.
When Mahmud of Ghazni invaded Saurashtra and captured its capital, Anhilwara, he deposed its and placed upon the throne, according to Ferishta, a prince of the former dynasty, renowned for his ancient line and purity of blood, and who is styled Dabichalima ; a name which has jiuzzled all European commentators.
Now the Dabhi was a celebrated tribe, said by some to be a branch of the Chawara, and this therefore may be a compound of Dabhi Chawara, or the Chaurasima, by some called a branch of the ancient Yadus.
This ancient connexion between the Surya\ansi cliiefs and the Chawaras, or Sauras, of Saurashtra, is still maintained after a lapse of more than one thousand years ; for although an alliance with the Rana's family is deemed the highest honour that a Hindu prince can obtain, as being the first in rank in Rajasthan, yet is the humble Chawara sought out, even at the foot of fortune's ladder, whence to carry on the blood of Rama.
The present heir-apparent of a line of ' one hundred kings,' the prince Jawan Singh [1828-38], is the offspring of a Chawara mother, the daughter of a petty chieftain of Gujarat. It were vain to give any account of the present stale of the families bearing this name. They must depend upon the fame
of past days ; to this we leave them.
Tak or Takshak.—Takshak appears to be the generic term of the race from which the various Scythic tribes, the early invaders of India, branched off. It appears of more ancient application than Getae, which was the parent of innumerable sakha.
It might not be judicious to separate them, though it would be speculative to say which was the primitive title of the races called Scythic, after their country, Sakatai or Sakadwipa, the land of
the great Getae.
Abulghazi makes Taunak^ the son of Turk or Targetai, who appears to be the Turushka of the Puranas, the Tukyuks of the Chinese historians, the nomadic Tokhari of Strabo, who aided to
overturn the Greek kingdom of Bactria, and gave their name to the grand division of Asia, Tokharistan or Turkistan : and there is every appearance of that singular race, tlie Tajik,* still scattered over these regions, and whose history appears a mystery, being the descendants of the Takshak.
It has been already observed, that ancient inscriptions in t)ie Pali or Buddhist character have been discovered in various parts of Rajasthan, of the race called Tasta, Takshak, and Tak, relating
to the tribes, the Mori [or Maurya], Pramara, their descendants.
Naga and Takshak are synonymous appellations in Sanskrit for the snake, and the Takshak is the celebrated Nagvansa of the early heroic history of India.
The Mahabharata describes^ in its usual allegorical style, the wars between the Pandavas of Indraprastha and the Takshaks of the north. The assassination of Parikshita by the Takshak, and the exterminating warfare carried When Alexander invaded India, he found the Paraitakai, the
mountain (pahar) Tak, inhabiting the Paropamisos range ; noris it by any means unlikely that Taxiles,^ the ally of the Macedonian king, was the chief (es) of the Taks ; and in the early
history of the Bhatti princes of Jaisalmer, when driven from kabulistan, they dispossessed the Taks on the Indus, and established themselves in their land, the capital of which was called Salivahanpura ; and as the date of this event is given as 3008 of the Yudhishthira era, it is by no means unlikely that Salivahana, or Salbhan (who was a Takshak), the conqueror of the Tuar Vikrama, was of the very family dispossessed by the Bhattis, who compelled them to migrate to the south.
The calculated period of the invasion of the Takshaks, or . Nagvansa, under Sheshnag, is about six or seven centuries before the Christian era, at which very period the Scythic invasion of Egypt and Syria, " by the sons of Togarmah riding on horses " (the Aswas, or Asi), is alike recorded by the prophet Ezekiel and Diodorus.
The Abu Mahatma calls the Takshaks " the sons of Himachal," all evincing Scythic descent ; and it was only eight reigns anterior to this change in the Lunar dynasties of India, that Parsvanath, the twenty-third Buddha [Jain Tirthankara], introduced his tenets into India, and fixed his abode in the holy
mount Sarnet.
on against them by his son and successor, Janamejaya, who at last compelled them to sign tributary engagements, divested of its allegory,' is plain historical fact the grand division of Asia, Tokharistan ^ or Turkistan : and there is every appearance of that singular race, tlie Tajik,* still scattered over these regions, and whose history appears a mystery, being the descendants of the Takshak.
It has been already observed, that ancient inscriptions in t)ie Pali or Buddhist character have been discovered in various parts of Rajasthan, of the race called Tasta, Takshak, and Tak, relating
to the tribes, the Mori [or Maurya], Pramara, their descendants.
Naga and Takshak are synonymous appellations in Sanskrit for the snake, and the Takshak is the celebrated Nagvansa of the early heroic history of India. The Mahabharata describes in its
usual allegorical style, the wars between the Pandavas of Indraprastha and the Takshaks of the north.
The assassination of Parikshita by the Takshak, and the exterminating warfare carried on against them by his son and successor, Janamejaya, who at last compelled them to sign tributary engagements, divested of its allegory,' is plain historical fact.
When Alexander invaded India, he found the Paraitakai, the
mountain (pahar) Tak, inhabiting the Paropamisos range ; nor
is it by any means unlikely that Taxiles,^ the ally of the Macedonian
king, was the chief (es) of the Taks ; and in the early
history of the Bhatti princes of Jaisalmer, when driven from
Zabulistan, they dispossessed the Taks on the Indus, and established
themselves in their land, the capital of which was called
Salivahanpura ; and as the date of this event is given as 3008 of
the Yudhishthira era, it is by no means unlikely that Salivahana,
or Salbhan (who was a Takshak), the conqueror of the Tuar
Vikrama, was of the very family dispossessed by the Bhattis,
who compelled them to migrate to the south.
The calculated period of the invasion of the Takshaks, or
. Nagvansa, under Sheshnag, is about six or seven centuries before
the Christian era, at which very period the Scythic invasion
of Egypt and Syria, " by the sons of Togarmah riding on horses "
(the Aswas, or Asi), is alike recorded by tlie prophet Ezekiel and
Diodorus. The Abu Mahatma calls the Takshaks " the sons of
Himachal," all evincing Scythic descent ; and it was only eight
reigns anterior to this change in the Lunar dynasties of India,
that Parsvanath, the twenty-third Buddha [Jain Tirthankara],
introduced his tenets into India, and fixed his abode in the holy
mount Sarnet.
^ [The Balhara of Arab travellers of the tenth century were the Rashtrakuta
dynasty of Malkhed, Balhara teing a corruption of Vallabharaja,
Vallabha being the royal title {BG, i. Part ii. 209).] [Vanaraja reigned from a.d. 765 to 780, and the dynasty is said to have lasted 196 years, but the evidence is still incomplete.
The name of Bhojraj does not appear in the most recent lists ^ Relations anciennes des Voyageurs, par Renaudot.
* [The true form of this puzzling term seems to be Dabshalim, whose
story is told in EUiot-Dowson (ii. 500 ff., iv. 183). Much of the account is
mere tradition, but it has been plausibly suggested that when Bhima I., the
Chaulukya king of Anhilwara was defeated by Mahmud of Ghazni in a.d. 1024, the latter may have appointed Durlabha, uncle of Bhima, to keep order in Gujarat, and that the two Dabshalims may be identified with Durlabha and his son [BG, i. Part i. 168). Also see Ferishta i. 76 ; Bayley,
Muhammadan Dynasties of Gujarat, 32 ff.]
Abulghazi [Hist, of the Turks, Moguls, and Tartars, 1730, i. 5 f .] says, when Noah left the ark he divided the earth amongst his three sons : Shem had Iran : Japhet, the country of ' Kuttup Shamach,' the name of the regions between the Caspian Sea and India.
There he Hved two hundred and fifty years. He left eight sons, of whom Turk was the elder and the
seventh Camari, supposed the Gomer of Scripture. Turk had four sons ; the eldest of whom was Taunak, the fourth from whom was Mogul, a corruption of Mongol, signifying sad, whose successors made the Jaxartes their winter abode.
[The word means ' brave ' (Howorth, Hist, of the Mongols, i. 27).] Under his reign no trace of the true rehgion remained : idolatry reigned everywhere. Aghuz Khan succeeded. The ancient Cimbri, who
went west with Odin's horde of Jats, Chattis, and Su , were probably the tribes
descended from Camari, the son of Turk.
Tacash continued to be a proper name with the great Khans of Kharizm (Chorasmia) until they adopted the faith of Muhammad. The father of Jala], the foe of Jenghiz Khan, was named Tacash. Tashkent on the .
Jaxartes, the cajDital of Turkistan, may be derived from the name of the race. Bayer says, " Tocharistan was the region of the Tochari, who were • the ancient Tijxapoi (Tochari), or Taxcipot(TachaA'oi)." Amraianus Marcellinus says, " many nations obey the Bactrians, whom the Tochari surjoass
"
.
This singular race, the Tajiks, are repeatedly mentioned by Mr. Elpliinstone
in his admirable account of the kingdom of Kabul. They are also
particularly noticed as monopoHsing the commercial transactions of the kingdom of Bokhara, in that interesting work. Voyage (TOrenbourg a Bokhara, the map accompanying whicli, for the first time, lays down authentically the sources and course of the Oxus and Jaxartes. [The term Tajik means the
settled population, as opposed to the Turks or tent-dM'ellers.
