In Praise of Kings

In Praise of Kings is a study of Gujarat in the long-neglected fifteenth century. The

interregnum between the Delhi sultanate and the Mughal empire has conventionally
been regarded as a period of decline. By contrast, this book shows the cultural and
political dynamism of an important South Asian region at this critical moment in its
history.
This book highlights how, after the fall of the Delhi sultanate, the political landscape
of fifteenth-century Gujarat was dominated by Rajput warrior chieftains and the
Muzaffarid sultans. The interaction between these competing political players have
been traditionally viewed as a clash between two religious groups. Querying this
perspective, the book demonstrates how both the Rajputs and the sultans fashioned a
common warrior ethos that was constructed with diverse literary and cultural elements.
Notably, the study draws on rarely used literary works in Sanskrit and Gujarati
to reconstruct the royal courts of fifteenth-century Gujarat and recasts the fifteenth
century as a period of creative transformations. It also questions the deeply entrenched
perception that Gujarat was predominantly a land of traders and merchants. Through
a close analysis of original primary sources, it shows how Gujarat’s warrior past was
also integral to this region’s history and identity.
This book will be of interest to students and scholars of medieval and early modern
South Asian history and literary culture, as well as to those concerned with wider
questions of the formation of regional traditions and identities.
Aparna Kapadia teaches History at Williams College, USA. She writes about the
history of Gujarat and western India, and the cultural and intellectual histories of
early modern and modern South Asia. She is also the co-editor of The Idea of Gujarat:
History, Ethnography and Text published in 2010.
In Praise of Kings
Rajputs, Sultans and Poets in
Fifteenth-century Gujarat

Aparna Kapadia
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First published 2018
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 Contents

List of Maps vi
Acknowledgements vii
A Note on Transliteration and Usage x
Introduction 1
1. Setting the Stage: Contextualising Fifteenth-century Gujarat 21
2. 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD: A Warrior Imagined 44
3. Gangadhara’s Oeuvre: Cosmopolitan Poetry for Local Kings 76
4. 5ƗMDYLQRGD: The Sultan as Indic King 103
5. 5ƗV0ƗOƗ: Re-Discovering a Warrior Past 129
Conclusion 158
Bibliography 165
Index 177
 List of Maps

Map 1 Relative location of the modern state of Gujarat in India. xi

Map 2 The modern state of Gujarat, India, with key cities and towns. xii
Map 3 Locations of historic places mentioned in the book within the
modern state of Gujarat. 43
 Acknowledgements

This book has been in the making for nearly a decade. When I began the project
as my doctoral dissertation at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS),
I intended to write a history of Gujarat, a region whose pre-colonial past had
received surprisingly little attention despite crucial significance in the political
and economic development of India. Over the years, however, the context for the
research coincided with other significant developments. In recent times, the politics
of India’s medieval past has become more fiercely contested than ever before.
Underpinning this contestation is a political imagination of the subcontinent’s
pre-colonial history as one shaped by conflict between religious communities.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Gujarat and western India. In this imagination,
little space remains for an understanding of interactions between social groups
as driven by multiple and overlapping motivations and affiliations set within
specific historical contexts. Through a focus on a period of transitions in a richly
diverse region, I hope to have broadened the space of discussion and highlighted
the complex fabric of India’s pre-colonial past.
I have accumulated several debts in writing this book. My dissertation advisor,
Daud Ali, helped to shape the project through the example of his own scholarship
and his insightful and constructive comments on the text. I am grateful for
Daud’s continued support and interest in my work. My interest in regional and
cultural history began at the Centre for Historical Studies in Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. Kunal Chakrabarty sparked my initial curiosity about
regional narrative traditions. During the early years of my graduate study, I
was also privileged to learn from scholars like Neeladri Bhattacharya, B. D.
Chattopadhyaya, Vijaya Ramaswamy, Himanshu Prabha Ray and Kum Kum Roy.
Fleur D’Souza and Siddhartha Menon’s engaging history classes at St Xavier’s
College and Rishi Valley School respectively alerted me to the exciting possibilities
of a career in the discipline.
In transforming the dissertation into a book, I have also benefitted from
comments and discussions with several scholars. I am particularly grateful to
viii Acknowledgements

Francesca Orsini for her timely and perceptive suggestions at a crucial stage.
Rosalind O’Hanlon’s mentorship during my postdoctoral years at the Oriental
Institute, Oxford University, helped to sharpen ideas in this monograph.
Christopher Minkowski offered several suggestions for the translation of the
Sanskrit works. Thanks are also due to Faisal Devji, Rachel Dwyer, Douglas
Haynes and Sunil Sharma for always being generous with their scholarship,
time and intellectual support. Interactions with and comments from scholars
working on pre-colonial histories of South Asia – Allison Busch, Whitney Cox,
Sumit Guha, Sunil Kumar, Luther Obrock, Ramya Sreenivasan, Cynthia Talbot,
and Audrey Truschke, in particular – have helped to refine many of the ideas
presented in this book.
Tanuja Kothiyal and Samira Sheikh read several drafts of the manuscript and
offered insightful suggestions and comments. No words can adequately express
my gratitude to them for their unconditional support, expertise and friendship.
Marisha Kirtane and Samir Patil always responded to my unreasonable demands
on their time. They provided the astute non-academic perspectives that helped to
improve clarity and coherence. This book has benefitted from several conversations
with Kaushik Bhaumik. I am also indebted to Prashant Kidambi who mentored
this project from its inception.
I am grateful to the editorial team at Cambridge University Press for their
patience. Katie Van Heest’s developmental inputs and Deborah Jones’s editorial
support have immeasurably improved the outcome. Three anonymous referees
for Cambridge University Press suggested ways to contextualize the ideas and
arguments of this monograph. Their suggestions have sharpened the final product.
Williams College has provided a congenial intellectual environment to complete
this book. My colleagues at the College, and especially the Department of History,
welcomed me warmly in their midst. Their support and encouragement of my
research and teaching as well as their unstinted friendship eased the challenges
that accompanied the writing of this book. Thanks are also owed to friends and
former colleagues at Ambedkar University, Delhi, where I took my first steps into
the world of university teaching.
The initial dissertation project was supported by a fellowship from the Felix
Trust. An Additional Fieldwork Grant from SOAS and an Isobel Thornley
Fellowship from the Institute of Historical Research funded the later stages of
dissertation research. The award of an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship
at the University of Oxford allowed me the time to work on the early drafts of the
manuscript. I also appreciate the support from the Hellman Fellows Fund and the
Oakely Center at Williams College, which facilitated the final stages of research
and writing. Williams College’s generous sabbatical leave policy provided the
uninterrupted time needed to see this book to completion.
 Acknowledgements ix

I am grateful to several libraries and archives in India, the United Kingdom,

and the United States for granting me access to their resources. Thanks are due
in India to the Library of the Asiatic Society and the Forbes Gujarati Sabha in
Mumbai, the B. J. Institute in Ahmedabad, the Hansa Mehta Library at the M. S.
University and Oriental Institute in Baroda, and the Bhandarkar Oriental Research
Institute in Pune. In the UK, I have benefitted from the repositories of the British
Library (Asia and Africa Collections) and the SOAS library; and in the USA from
the Library of Congress in Washington DC and the Widener Library at Harvard.
I would also like to offer my heartfelt thanks to the Williams College Library,
particularly to the inter-library loan service through which I was able to access
a number of valuable research materials. I am grateful to Cory Campbell at the
Williams College Office of Information Technology for preparing the maps.
Versions of chapters 3, 4 and 5 have been previously published. Chapter 3
appeared in After Timur Left: Culture and Circulation in Fifteenth Century North
India edited by Francesca Orsini and Samira Sheikh (Oxford University Press,
2014); extracts from Chapter 4 were published in The Medieval History Journal
(vol. 16, issue 1, 2013), and sections of Chapter 5 in The Idea of Gujarat: History,
Ethnography and Text edited by Edward Simpson and myself (Orient Blackswan,
2010). I am grateful to the editors and publishers for granting me permission to
use this material.
I have been very fortunate to have been part of a vibrant community of scholars
of South Asia in three countries. Aparna Balachandran, Preeti Chopra, Carolyn
Heitmeyer, Farhana Ibrahim, Abhishek Kaicker, Aditi Saraf, Aditya Sarkar and
Uditi Sen have all been wonderful interlocutors and compatriots in this journey,
making every moment a worthwhile enterprise. Many other friends have also
sustained me through their emotional and intellectual support. I particularly
wish to thank Meera Asher, Milena Behrendt, Christophe Carvahlo, Amal Eqeiq,
Jacqueline Hidalgo, Ann Leibowitz, John Lloyd, Christophe Kone, Vedica Kant,
Pia Kohler, Mahesh Menon, Sudhir Sitapati, Mishka Sinha, Archana Rao, Darshak
Shah and Abha Thorat-Shah. Virchand Dharamsey was always willing to share his
extraordinary scholarship and knowledge of the many histories of Gujarat. Geeta
Kapur and Vivan Sundaram; Arun Adarkar and Fiona Shrikhande; and Aruna
and Priya D’Souza have been the most supportive and generous extended family.
My parents, and my sister Payal Kapadia, as well as Ranabir Das, have been an
endless source of encouragement and inspiration. To them I remain ever-grateful.
Nandita Prasad Sahai, dear friend, mentor, fellow traveler, left this world a little
too soon. It is to Nandita’s memory that I dedicate this book.
 A Note on Transliteration and Usage

In the interest of readability, I have kept the use of diacritical marks to the
minimum. I have used these only for book titles and in direct quotes. In such
instances, the words are transcribed according to the American Language
Association-Library of Congress (ALA-LC) charts.
‡ &RPPRQZRUGVIURP,QGLDQODQJXDJHVKDYHQRWEHHQLWDOLFLVHG
‡ $OO(QJOLVKWUDQVODWLRQVDUHPLQHXQOHVVLQGLFDWHGRWKHUZLVH
‡ 'DWHVDUHUHQGHUHGLQWKH&RPPRQ(UDWKURXJKRXWWKHERRN
Map 1: Relative location of the modern state of Gujarat in India.
Source: GADM database of Global Administrative Areas
Map 2: The modern state of Gujarat, India, with key cities and towns.
Source: GADM database of Global Administrative Areas.
 Introduction 1

Introduction

Gangadhara, a multilingual poet of the fifteenth century, having achieved

renown in south India, decided to seek further glory in the faraway kingdoms
of Gujarat.1 From the court of King Pratapadevaraya of Vijayanagara (r.
1426–1447), he set forth on a long and arduous journey of hundreds of miles.2
At the time, Gujarat roughly comprised much of the territory that is part
of the state today, including the peninsulas of Saurashtra, also known as
Kathiawad, and Kachchh.3 Gangadhara first went on a pilgrimage to the holy
city of Dwarka. Next, he proceeded to the court of Sultan Muhammad Shah II
(r. 1442–1451), at Ahmadabad. This was a flourishing city, a new capital of
the Gujarat sultanate that had only recently been built by the Sultan’s father,
Ahmad Shah (r. 1411–1442). At the Ahmedabad court, to the great delight of
Sultan Muhammad, Gangadhara vanquished the local poets with his excellent
lyrical skills. Gangadhara then went on to two other courts in the region –

1 The story of Gangadhara’s travels is based on a Sanskrit play which Gangadhara

composed for Raja Gangadas, the Chauhan ruler of Champaner, a kingdom located
in eastern Gujarat. See Gangadhara, *DQJDGƗVD3UDWƗSD9LOƗVD1Ɨ‫ܒ‬DNDP, II, 17–18.
In the play, the poet tells us that he is proficient in six languages but does not specify
which ones. For more on Gangadhara’s compositions, see Chapter 3.
2 Pratapadevaraya was also referred to as Devaraya II. He was well known as a great
patron and was himself a poet writing in Kannada.
3 The modern state of Gujarat came into existence on 1 May 1960, as a part of a long
movement to divide the former Bombay State into the linguistic states of Gujarat and
Maharashtra. However, the region, with its varying ecologies, had taken shape from the
thirteenth century onwards, and already roughly corresponded to its present boundaries.
By the time it was incorporated into the Delhi sultanate in the early fourteenth century,
the term ‘Gujarat’ had been adopted as a convenient appellation for the different
constitutive units. For a brief history of the region’s modern cartographic history, see
Kapadia and Simpson, ‘Gujarat in Maps’.
2 In Praise of Kings

Champaner, to the east of the capital, and Junagadh, to its far west – composing
panegyrics for the Rajput chieftains of these fort kingdoms.
In the mid-fifteenth century Gujarat was becoming well known as a place
where poets and scholars were sure to find supportive audiences.4 Sanskrit
continued to be popular: Gangadhara’s skills in this Indic High language were
favoured not only by modest Rajput kings but also desired in the court of a
Muslim sultan. At the same time, a multilingual milieu was also emerging. As
political action shifted away from the subcontinent’s traditional centre, Delhi,
Gujarat, an ecologically and socially diverse region, saw a variety of groups
vying for political power. Poets, writers, and scribes were crucial to the ways
in which these new rulers of local and regional entities imagined their polities
and asserted their rights to rule in this changing political context. Gangadhara’s
ability to make good in the different courts that constituted Gujarat evidence the
region’s political, cultural, and literary vibrancy. Yet the century during which
Gangadhara made his journey is viewed in the conventional historiography
of pre-modern South Asia as one of political and cultural decline. In most
surveys of Indian history, the fifteenth century is given little attention, and is
often designated the ‘period in waiting’ or the ‘twilight’ before the rise of the
Mughals in the sixteenth century.5
This paradox is the starting point of the questions that animate this book:
what kind of political ethos can we discern from works like Gangadhara’s
compositions in praise of Gujarat’s kings? Who were these kings whose courts
supported both local and trans-regional poets in the fifteenth century? And
what does their presence say about the politics and culture of Gujarat during

4 A number of Sanskrit poets from various parts of India appear to have visited Gujarat
throughout the course of history. Bilhana, the Kashmiri poet, visited Patan sometime
in the eleventh century and was patronised by the Chaulukya king Karna’s minister
Sampatakara or Shantu. Here he wrote a play entitled .DUD۬DVXQGDUƯ. In the thirteenth
century, Harihara, a Brahmin poet from Bengal, interrupted his journey to the holy site
of Somanatha, at the behest of Vastupala, the governor of Sthambhatirtha or Khambhat
(Cambay). Harihara is said to have composed a play based on the Jain governor’s life
before continuing his journey. For more information on the works of these, and other,
Sanskrit poets in Gujarat, see Panchal, ‘A Glimpse into the Sanskrit and Other Forms
of Drama in Medieval Gujarat’, 293–310.
5 K. S. Lal’s book is the only comprehensive political history of this period. Lal’s work
focuses on the decline and subsequent recovery of Delhi as a regional kingdom in this
period. See Lal, Twilight of the Sultanate. A small number of general surveys of Indian
history provide a corrective to the dominant view on the fifteenth century. These include:
Keay, India: A History and Asher and Talbot, India Before Europe.
 Introduction 3

this time? Why would a successful poet from a region with a well-established
tradition of patronage, like Vijayanagara, undertake a difficult journey to find
new patrons in Gujarat in particular?
I use literary narratives produced in the courts of Gujarat to answer these
questions and explore the ways in which regional and local rulers were
represented, and represented themselves, in a century of transitions between
c. 1398 and 1511. These narratives include biographical praise-poems in
Sanskrit as well as in Dimgal, a poetic language tradition associated with
the oral genealogist-historians of western India.6 The result is a portrait of
fifteenth-century Gujarat as a rich, multi-layered, and multi-lingual political
landscape. At the start of this period, Gujarat was an unsettled region, a
frontier in which a number of different mobile political players of obscure
origins, ranging from warlords to chieftains, who later came to be referred
to as Rajputs, and sultans with imperial ambitions, were making competing
territorial and economic claims. By the mid fifteenth-century, the sultans would
overpower the competition to establish a regional imperium. Whatever the size
of their actual domains, these men sought to define themselves in a landscape
of shifting authorities and ambiguous sovereignties; patronising poets and
commissioning panegyrics was one way they asserted their newfound status.
Turning our gaze to such regional specificities, and regional texts, highlights
the changes in the subcontinent, driven by smaller political and territorial
entities, and proves the fifteenth century to have been a time of influential
change that has hitherto not been fully investigated and accounted for.
Two developments have conventionally been viewed as markers of political
and cultural change in the history of pre-modern north India: first, Delhi’s
sack at the hands of the famous Turko-Mongol warrior, Timur, in 1398 and
the Delhi sultanate’s consequent decline, and second, the rise of the Mughal
empire, which is credited with the inauguration of unprecedented political
and cultural innovations. The intervening period between 1398 and 1555,7

6 Dimgal, a linguistic tradition, sometimes called a language, was in use in Gujarat and
Rajasthan from at least the fifteenth century onwards. This tradition is associated with
‘bards’ or poets of the Charan caste. Whether Dimgal is a poetic style or a separate
language remains a controversial matter. The main issue around which the debate is
centred is whether Dimgal should be distinguished from Pimgal, a prose language used
in Rajasthan and Gujarat. For a detailed survey of the tradition/language, see Bhati,
3UƗFƯQ‫ڱ‬L۬JDۜ*ƯW6ƗKLW\D.
7 This is the period between Timur’s invasion and Humayun’s return to India from Iran,
from when the Mughal empire would be firmly based in the subcontinent.
4 In Praise of Kings

sometimes referred to as ‘the long fifteenth century’, is often overlooked

as many of the sources available from this time are not the sorts commonly
considered ‘hard evidence’. Major imperial accounts, building projects, and
other material remains are scarce. However, even when such evidence is
available, as in the case of the regional sultanate of Gujarat (1407–1580),
literary narratives that were produced in abundance during this period give
insight conventional sources cannot. The writings explored in this monograph
– primarily biographical praise poems – reveal the ideologies, aspirations, and
self-expressions of those who may have commissioned them. Expanding the
conventional archive to include these effusions illuminates what is obscured in
the historiography of fifteenth-century Gujarat as a ‘twilight’ time of political
fragmentation and cultural regression.8 Upending prevailing conceptions,
this book uncovers the fifteenth century as an era of tremendous dynamism.
Taking a fresh look at this century’s cultural diversity, and the creative political
processes that it engendered, can throw light on the history of pre-Mughal
South Asia in important new ways.9

Society and Polity in a Regional Setting

Gujarat had been a province of Delhi since c. 1304. In 1407, amidst the chaos
that followed Delhi’s destruction at Timur’s hands, the last governor sent to
Gujarat by the Delhi sultan, Zafar Khan son of ‘Wajih al-Mulk’, declared
himself independent of his former masters. Zafar Khan took the title of
Muzaffar Shah, and with this declaration inaugurated a regional imperium
that would last for over a hundred and fifty years. Gujarat had the advantage
of a long association with the Indian Ocean trade networks. This favourable
position was further enhanced by the sultans’ control over important coastal and

8 Francesca Orsini and Samira Sheikh have emphasised the value of the literary archive
to better understand this period as it is often the lack of conventional sources that had
led scholars to ignore this important century. See Orsini and Sheikh, After Timur Left.
9 My book adds momentum to a small but significant and growing body of scholarship
challenging the notion of this period as a time of regression. See Orsini and Sheikh,
After Timur Left. The essays included in this volume provide a rich picture of how a
milieu of multiple languages and literary forms was emerging in this century. Also see
Jha, ‘Beyond the Local and the Universal,’ 1–40; ‘Literary Conduits for “Consent”’,
322–50. Samira Sheikh’s work on Gujarat not only provides an important revisionist
history of the region in this period but is also a significant intervention in creating an
understanding of society and polity in a regional setting during this important century.
See Sheikh, Forging a Region, 2010.
 Introduction 5

overland trade routes that connected Gujarat to the rest of the subcontinent.10
According to the eighteenth-century historian Ali Mohammad Khan, it was
this resulting prosperity that led the fifteenth-century ruler of Delhi, Sultan
Sikandar Shah, to complain that the ‘support of the throne of Delhi is wheat
and barley but the foundation of the realm of Gujarat is coral and pearls’.11
Years later, Gujarat’s wealth also made it the prized province of the Mughal
empire: two of its major rulers, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, had both served
as its governors before ascending Delhi’s throne.
The region Muzaffar Shah (r. 1407–1411) and his descendants came to
control was characterized by a vast ecological diversity and consequently,
different economies of trade.12 Different parts of the region were
interconnected by the trade routes that extended overland to other parts of
the Indian subcontinent as well as to the western Indian ocean. Gujarat’s
location and ecology rendered it a frontier that encouraged the movement
and settlement of traders, pastoralists, peasants, military, and political
adventurers. Its long coastline had been home to a variety of trading
communities and their mercantile interests, while the central plains of the east
were centres of manufacturing and agriculture. The Saurashtra and Kachchh
peninsulas had supported pastoral and semi-pastoral life for centuries. Many
of these pastoralists went on to adopt the upwardly mobile social identity of
Rajputs as they established stronger territorial ties in these locales during
the fifteenth century. Gujarat in the fifteenth century was also marked by
considerable urban and agricultural expansion, which facilitated settlement.13
As they established their rule, the sultans were able to ‘settle’ different
parts of this diverse region and increase its interconnectedness through the

10 For a history of Gujarat’s internal trade routes until the fourteenth century, see Jain,
Trade and Traders in Western India. André Wink has also demonstrated how the balance
of power in the Indian regional context was affected by shifts in Indian Ocean trade.
See Wink, $O+LQG, vols. 1 and 3. For Gujarat’s trading history after the Portuguese
arrival in the region, particularly during the sixteenth century, see Pearson, Merchants
and Rulers of Gujarat.
11 Bayley, Local Muhommadan Dynasties of Gujarat, 20.
12 For a recent overview of the term ‘Gujarat’ and a history of the term’s relationship to
the territories it constituted, see Sheikh, Forging a Region, 25–27.
13 This is particularly visible in the numerous grants for wells, tanks, and mosques made
to faciliate the settlement of forested regions, including those extending from eastern
Rann of Kachchh to Patan and those lying between Patan and Cambay. For details of
building patterns as reflected in epigraphs, see table in Sheikh, Forging a Region,
77–80.
6 In Praise of Kings

expansion of trading networks and further development of cities. A number

of administrative and military measures also encouraged this process.
The sultans’ attempts to make inroads into Gujarat were not unchallenged;
likewise their success was not a foregone conclusion. Throughout their rule,
the sultans faced considerable resistance from chieftains and rulers of local
power centres, who had often acquired their patrimonies during Chaulukya
rule. With Chaulukya decline in the twelfth century, many of these regional
strongmen were able gain control over lands around the core administrative
area. The fifteenth century saw an expansion of this state of affairs, with the
competition between political aspirants growing as Delhi weakened. Thus, in
Gujarat, on the eve of the regional sultanate’s establishment, many of these
chieftains – including the Rathods in Idar, the Chauhans in Champaner, the
Chudasamas and the Gohils in Saurashtra – had built strong local political ties.
Their forts, located on the outer boundaries of what had been the region’s centre,
Anhilvada–Patan, and later Ahmadabad, were of great strategic significance,
as was their control of the resources in the surrounding areas.
The history of Gujarat in the fifteenth century was shaped by alternating
periods of conflict, negotiation, and accommodation between these small
but significant local power bases and the regional sultans, for whom the
control of these resources was crucial to their centralising initiatives and
to the establishment of their rule.14 The narratives surveyed in this book
are expressions of this landscape in which political configurations were in
flux and multiple groups were vying to establish their political and social
positions. 5D۬DPDOODchanda, a poem narrating the story of the Rathod
chieftain Ranmal (Chapter 2) provides a striking example of this. Ranmal’s
fort at Idar, strategically located on the trade route connecting the sultanate
capital at Anhilvada–Patan, was one of the first local power bases coveted by
Zafar Khan. Yet, while Ranmal is depicted in the poem as a fierce warrior
single-handedly resisting and triumphing over the Khan’s massive armies,
he is a chieftain devoid of lofty titles or a prestigious lineage, thus indicating
his modest and hitherto unestablished status. Moreover, he is also depicted as
conquering territories encompassing much of Gujarat – territories that would
have been far beyond his reach. Other historical accounts do not corroborate the

14 Recently, Richard Eaton and Philip Wagoner have studied the power struggles between
what they term the ‘primary centres’ of power on the Deccan plateau, and the ‘secondary
centres’ that lay on the plateau’s frontier. The local chieftaincies of Gujarat can also
be viewed in similar terms vis-a-vis the regional sultanate. See Eaton and Wagoner,
Power, Memory, Architecture.
 Introduction 7

claims about Ranmal in these verses. Yet the poet allows the reader/audience
to consider possibilities that lie beyond historical realities – a large empire,
or comparisons with well-known, and often unconventional, historical and
mythical heroes – creating a history and legacy for the protagonist in a time
when new social identities of men like him were still evolving.
The struggle between the chieftains and sultans in the dominant
historiography of Gujarat and in the popular imagination is often narrowly
viewed in terms of clashes between two religious groups: the ‘Hindu’ Rajputs
and the ‘Muslim’ sultans. In this line of thought, which has had a lasting impact,
the introduction of Turkic rule is considered the end of civilisation and as a
rupture in Gujarat’s heroic history.15 However, the political flux that shaped
the establishment and consolidation of sultanate rule in the region cannot be
comprehended through such simplistic religious binaries. The rise of the new
chieftains and the breakaway sultans may be more productively understood as
an outcome of the ‘military labour’ market that had been emerging in central

15 The influential scholar-politician K. M. Munshi’s writings are a primary example of

this view in which the Chaulukya–Vaghela rulers are seen as the sole representatives of
Gujarat’s ‘glorious’ ‘heroic’ past. See Munshi, 7KH*ORU\WKDWZDV*njUMDUDGHĞD, vol. 1
and *XMDUƗWDDQGLWV/LWHUDWXUH. Several other accounts of the region’s history have also
underscored the role of the Chaulukyas as representing the ‘glorious’ past of Gujarat.
*XMDUƗWQR0DGK\DNƗOƯQD5ƗMSXW,WLKƗV(The Medieval Rajput History of Gujarat, first
published during 1937–39), for instance, viewed the Chaulukya–Vaghela dynasties as
the great warrior rulers of the medieval period. Their reign, according to the book’s
author, Durgashankar Shastri, was one in which the region attained the height of its
prosperity, but in the centuries after ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji’s attack, he notes, Gujarat saw
the destruction of its ‘Hindu Empire’ and along with that the destruction of its ‘Hindu
culture and prosperity.’ See Shastri, *XMDUƗWQR0DGK\DNƗOƯQD5ƗMSnjW,WLKƗV, vol. 1,
504. Similarly, A. K. Majumdar’s Chaulukyas of Gujarat also granted this dynasty the
pride of place in the region’s medieval history. For him, the Chaulukyas were the ‘virile
captains of war’, who saved the country from the disorder that followed the end of the
*XUDMDUD3UDWLKƗUDVDQGWKH5DVKWUDNX৬DHPSLUHVRIQRUWKHUQ,QGLD6HH0DMXPGDU
Chaulukyas of Gujarat, 1. Two other historical works, one by M. S. Commissariat and
the other by S. C. Misra, are general accounts that are less prone to such biases even
though they take a dynastic approach. See Commissariat, A History of Gujarat, vol.
1, vol. 2, and Misra, The Rise of Muslim Power in Gujarat. More recently, Sheikh’s
work on the society and polity has provided a much-needed corrective to the histories
that foreground the role of the Chaulukyas and Vaghelas as Gujarat’s legitimate rulers.
Instead, Sheikh shows how the region was ‘forged’ through historical processes that had
been at work since 1200 and how Gujarat’s diverse elements were integrated through
the ‘religious marketplace’ facilitated by the Muzaffarid sultans in the fifteenth century.
See Sheikh, Forging a Region.
8 In Praise of Kings

and north India since the 1200s.16 This was a landscape of rich mobility wherein
talented military adventurers could attain a considerable degree of success
through their ability to recruit manpower and supply elephants and horses.
The Delhi sultans were the largest employers of these services, creating space
for entrepreneurial leaders, with a loose and contingent allegiance to central
authority, to establish their own landed chieftaincies or even regional-level
kingdoms.
In fact, Zafar Khan’s own father and uncle had been beneficiaries of this
very system, as they had won the favour of the Delhi sultan, Firoz Shah, by
supplying his military. These men, a certain Saharan and his brother Sadhu,
were, most likely peasants or pastoralists, non-Muslim Tank Rajputs from
Thanesar in northwestern India (modern-day Haryana). They encountered
the prince Firuz Khan (who would later become Firuz Shah Tughluq) when
he was separated from his retinue during a hunting expedition. The two
brothers, who were already somewhat prominent within their locality and
could gather horsemen and footsoldiers by the thousands, decided to help the
prince, whom they recognised as having royal links. They further ingratiated
themselves with the prince by giving him their sister in marriage and joined
his retinue, eventually becoming very prominent among his courtiers. Both
brothers eventually converted to Islam and became followers of a prominent
Sufi saint. Saharan received the title of Wajih al-Mulk. It was Wajih al-Mulk’s
son, Zafar Khan, who went on to become the last governor of the prosperous
province of Gujarat before declaring himself an independent sultan. The
progress of his career is indicative of how rapidly military adventurers could
rise in this landscape.17
The eventual collapse of Delhi’s power in the fourteenth century led to
the further expansion of the military labour market and the formation of a
number of new political alliances between the rising sultanates and those who
commanded the resources they required to cement their rule. Consequently,
new groups were also integrated into the political networks during the
fifteenth century. Chief among these were Afghans and other migrants from
the northwest, as well as diverse men of unknown origins who came to be
encompassed by the label of Rajput. In return for military services, these men

16 Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy.

17 This summary is based on Sikandar Manjhu’s account. See Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ,
trans. 1–3. Cynthia Talbot’s discussion on the Kyamkhani lineage of Rajasthan shows
a more detailed elaboration of the process by which upward mobility of this kind could
be achieved during this period. Talbot, ‘Becoming Turk the Rajput Way,’ 211–43.
 Introduction 9

were able to acquire lands that they could pass on to their descendants as well
as gain varying degrees of political status.18
If the entrepreneurial military labour market was one of the defining forces
shaping Gujarat’s polity at the time, another factor was the struggle by the local
centres of powers to assert their status. The ways in which the local chieftains
sought to have their authority recognised, offers even more clear evidence that
the framework of religious binaries is seriously misleading. As many of these
warrior groups became more successful, both in terms of their territorial gains,
and political prominence, they also aspired to royalty. One way in which they
pursued this aspiration was by drawing on pre-existing norms of the exalted
Kshatriya status that had been deployed by Indic polities for centuries. In their
public epigraphs, many of these groups, including a number of chieftains from
Gujarat, made claims on this prestigious identity by forging links with the
ancient solar and lunar lineages (surya and chandra vamsha), claiming royal
titles and links with Puranic deities, and in many cases also making grants of
land to Brahmins and projecting themselves in stock terms as protectors of
Brahmins and cows.19
The currency of the Kshatriya status was so strong even in the fifteenth
century that the powerful Muzaffarid sultans, self-proclaimed Muslim rulers
who had access to several other avenues of expressing their political superiority
and royalty, also chose to make claims on this identity. According to the
account of seventeenth-century historian Sikandar Manjhu, which traces the
sultans’ Rajput ancestry back by several generations, the Tanks belonged to
the solar lineage, which linked them to the Puranic hero, Rama.20 A full-blown
expression of this is visible in the Sanskrit poem addressed to Mahmud Shah
Begada (1459–1511), which also links him to the solar lineage, and portrays him
as a paramount Indic king or chakravarti, blessed by Sarasvati, the goddess
of learning, who chooses to establish herself in the sultan’s court (Chapter 4).
In the poem, Sultan Mahmud Begada is adorned with multiple titles usually
reserved for great Indic kings, and described as equal in virtues and attributes

18 Alongside military men, Hindu and Jain merchants were also invited by the various
sultanates to settle in their territories and, as inscriptional accounts from the period
show, they gained prominent positions. For the expansion of Jain patrons, see De Clercq,
‘Apabhramsha as Literary Medium in Fifteenth-Century North India’ in Orsini and
Sheikh, After Timur Left, 339–64.
19 Chattopadhyaya, ‘Origin of Rajputs,’ 57–88.
20 Sikandar,0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ trans., 1.
10 In Praise of Kings

to a plethora of Puranic deities. Thus, despite the options available to him,

pre-existing ideologies of Indic kingship and royal status appear to have held
significance to this regional Muslim monarch.
The evolution of the quest of Kshatriya status would eventually result
in many of the local chieftains making claims on the ‘Rajput’ identity. The
heroes from the Rathod, Chauhan, and Chudasama lineages that appear in the
following pages, have all been recognised as such from the sixteenth century
onwards. B. D. Chattopadhya’s groundbreaking work on Rajasthan suggests
that ‘Rajput’ was an assimilative category that allowed for transition from
tribal to state polity from the sixth century onwards and in which prestigious
descent played a crucial role.21 On the other hand, Dirk Kolff suggests that,
during the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, ‘Rajput’ was an open-ended
category that provided social status to a wide range of itinerant warriors who
continued to circulate in northern and northwestern India; it was only in the
sixteenth century, Kolff writes, that the term Rajput came to be associated
with aristocratic monarchical lineages.22 In the narratives discussed, from
the courts of Gujarat, both the older warrior ethos and the gradually emerging
descent-based category of Rajputs can be found. Moreover, the universal
royal ideal of Kshatriya kingship was integrated into the ways the identities
of these groups developed. While a warrior like Ranmal Rathod (Chapter 2),
is referred to as a Kshatriya, the panegyric addressed to him is a bricolage of
different tropes that draw from local legends, contemporary history, as well as
Puranic mythology. It is these, rather than his lineage and descent, that define
him as a hero and chieftain. In contrast, in the biography of the Chudasama
king, Mandalik (Chapter 3), whose family had ruled the fort of Junagadh
in Saurashtra for centuries, we can see a descent-based identity acquiring
significance. Interestingly, among all the narratives studied here, descent from
the prestigious solar lineage, as well as a genealogy tracing historical descent,
hold the most significant place in the epic-poem addressed to the Muslim sultan,
Mahmud Begada (Chapter 4). A close reading of narratives from the local and
regional courts throws light on the fluid nature of the ‘Rajput warrior’ identity
and reveals how those who claimed it harnessed a plethora of widely-recognised
rhetorical elements to do so.

21 Chattopadhyaya, ‘Origin of Rajputs,’ and ‘Political Processes and the Structure of

Polity in Early Medieval India’ in The Making of Early Medieval Indian, 183–222.
22 Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, 71–74.
 Introduction 11

A rich body of scholarship now exists on the elite clan-based Rajput kingship
and warrior tradition that evolved from the sixteenth century onwards as elite
Rajputs were incorporated in the Mughal imperial system. It was during this
period that the category of ‘Rajput’ came to be crystallised around prestigious
descent, something that was held in significance by the imperial Mughals as
well.23 Less is known, however, about the specific elements of the elite warrior
ethos and descent-based identity that were emerging in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, when the idea of the ‘Rajput’ was still open-ended and
could include a number of different elements and innovations. The collection
of narratives brought together in this book reflects crucial aspects of the ways
in which the warrior ethos and identities were creatively developing, but had
not entirely become set in stone, in the fifteen-century milieu.
Society and polity as represented in the narratives from Gujarat’s courts
offer a view of a vibrant and evolving warrior ethos. The warrior chieftains
of these works, composed by Brahmin poets and preserved in written form,
belonged to elite traditions and circulated within the setting of elite courts.
The trajectories the warriors took in each case differed, but often rather
than simplistic religious differences, it was the common pool of ideological
resources that shaped the ways in which they chose to fashion their political
claims through the works of their poet panegyrists.

Literary Innovations for Elaborating a Warrior Identity

As Gangadhara’s experience with the regional and local courts of Gujarat
shows, here and in many other parts of India, patrons big and small were
seeking the services of poets and composers who could articulate their newly
acquired positions, or at least their aspirations. The fifteenth-century Telugu
poet Srinatha travelled across the Andhra region and was called upon not only
by the Vijayanagara king Harihara II, but also by the ambitious elites of the
region, who wished secure their social positions by emulating current courtly
trends.24 Similarly, in several small hinterland towns that popped up all over

23 6HH=LHJOHUµ0DUZDUL&KURQLFOHV¶DQGµ6RPH1RWHVRQ5ƗMSXW/R\DOWLHV'XULQJWKH
Mughal Period’, in The Mughal State, 68–210; Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy; Mita,
µ3ROLW\DQG.LQJVKLSRI(DUO\0HGLHYDO5DMDVWKDQ$Q$QDO\VLVRIWKH1DGRO&ƗKPƗQD
Inscriptions,’ in Kingship in Indian History, 89–117.
24 Rao and Shulman, Classical Telugu Poetry, 118. For an elaboration of the poet’s role in
fashioning the identity of the Andhra elites and the region itself, see Rao and Shulman,
ĝUƯQDWKD.
12 In Praise of Kings

central India, warlords and chieftains – men who may not even have had strong
forts let alone an actual court – commissioned poetic works in the north Indian
vernacular, Hindavi, modifying classical genres to suit their own specific
contextual contingencies.25 Likewise, in Gujarat, a great deal of literature
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries comes from these relatively small
centres of power: Ranmal’s Idar fort (Chapter 2) was most likely of a modest
size at the time when Sridhara Vyasa composed his panegyric celebrating
the chieftain. Gangadas and Mandalik (Chapter 3), on the other hand, were
holders of larger fortifications at Champaner and Junagadh, respectively,
which the regional sultans found more challenging to conquer.26
The texts surveyed here can broadly be categorised as eulogistic biographies
of the lives and deeds of individual chieftains and kings. While the roots of royal
biographies can be traced to the Vedic period, biographies of historically known
kings and individuals became popular across the subcontinent from the early
medieval period onwards.27 These are not always birth-to-death narratives;
rather they often include events that may have been regarded by the patron or
poet as worthy of transmission to a contemporary audience and preservation
for posterity. The narratives may also go beyond historical realities, sometimes
including supernatural interventions, as was the convention in these genres.
Nonetheless, they all demonstrate a keen awareness of the patrons’ specific
historic and political context.
The poet-composers of these narratives played a central role in the creation
of the self-image of new warrior groups, some of whom, as the protagonists
of the compositions in this book, also managed to acquire varying degrees
of elite status. Ranmal’s ancestors belonged to the cadet line of the Rathod
clan, and had gained territorial control of Idar during the Chaulukya reign
in Ahilvada–Patan around the eleventh century. The Chudasamas, on the
other hand, had become the most prominent rulers of Saurashtra over several

25 Sreenivasan, ‘Warrior-Tales’. Imre Bangha has also discussed how Valmiki’s classical
5DPƗ\D৆D HSLF ZDV PRGLILHG LQ WKH YHUQDFXODU LQ ILIWHHQWKFHQWXU\ *ZDOLRU 6HH
Bangha, ‘Early Hindi Epic Poetry in Gwalior,’ in Sheikh and Orsini, After Timur Left,
365– 402.
26 Mahmud Shah Begada would eventually overpower both of these fortifications and lay
the foundations of sultanate cities in Champaner and Junagadh.
27 For histories of the biographical tradition in pre-modern South Asia see Pathak, Ancient
Historians of India, 1–29. Also, Ali, ‘Temporality, Narration and the Problem of History’,
Indian Economic and Social History Review, 237–59; and, Thapar, The Past Before Us,
471–506.
 Introduction 13

centuries.28 These chieftains, originally pastoralists with links to Islam, came

to claim elaborate royal titles and ties to the Puranic deity Krishna’s yadava
lineage; such efforts are partucularly visible in the eulogistic biographical
poem, 0D۬‫ڲ‬DOƯNDQ‫܀‬pacarita, addressed to their last major ruler Mandalik
(Chapter 3).
The Chaulukya and their successors, the Vaghelas, who preceded the rulers
of Delhi in Gujarat, had been great patrons of Sanskrit as well as the other trans-
regional languages, Apabhramsha and Prakrit. Hundreds of public inscriptions
and important eulogies evidence how the Chaulukya-Vaghelas presided over an
Indic polity that drew from the prevailing conventions of the cosmopolitan ideal
of kingship. Furthermore, the Chaulukyas and Vaghelas also supported the Jain
faith, members of which often had close ties to the state. The eleventh-century
Jain scholar-monk, Acharya Hemachandra, who is considered one the most
important Jain intellectuals, was based at the court of two of the most prominent
kings of the Chaulukya dynasty. A number of compositions, including the
Sanskrit-Apabhramsha-Prakrit grammar, Siddharhemacandra, played an
important role in shaping Chaulukya ideas of rule both within the region
and outside of it. At the same time, within the numerous Muslim trading
communities that had settled in Gujarat’s thriving urban centres, Arabic and, to
some extent Persian, were introduced into the region’s literary landscape. This
multilingual tradition, which had already been established during Chaulukya–
Vaghela rule beginning in the tenth century, reached an unprecedented scale
during the fifteenth-century regional transformations.
The Muzaffarid sultans actively patronised literature and learning in Arabic
and Persian, perhaps on a larger scale than in other contemporary courts.
Scholars and men of religion from across the Islamic world were invited to settle
in the region, which emerged as a vibrant location for intellectual communities
to flourish. 29 This also provided impetus for the first expressions of an Indo-
Persian vernacular, Gujari, a form of Hindavi or Hindi.30 As Sufis and scholars

28 For a history of the Chudasamas’ rise in status and their eventual fall as the rulers of the
Saurashtra peninsula, see Sheikh, ‘Alliance, Genealogy and Political Power,’ Medieval
History Journal, 29–61.
29 For a history of the creation of Muslim intellectual communities in Gujarat and the role
of the sultans in facilitating them, see Balachandran, ‘Texts, Tombs and Memory’.
30 2Q*XMDULVHH'DUµ*XMDUDW V&RQWULEXWLRQWR*XMDULDQG8UGX¶±1D\DNµ*XMDUƯ
%KƗVKƗ¶Svadhayaya, 268–85; Pathak, ‘Gujari: The God-Given Great Gift to the World,’
in Siddiqi, 7KH*URZWKRI,QGR3HUVLDQ/LWHUDWXUHLQ*XMDUDW, 98–104. Also, Sheikh,
Forging a Region, 204–14.
14 In Praise of Kings

from north India settled in the cities of Gujarat, they often composed works in
this regional tongue. Yet Sanskrit and bilingual inscriptions using both Sanskrit
and Persian, and sometimes Gujarati, also a regional language, continued to be
commissioned both by local communities as well as court officials; there was
a considerable increase in the number of such inscriptions during the fifteenth
century. Furthermore, the tradition of Jain literary production not only endured
under the Delhi sultanate, but flourished as Jain scholars continued to compose
works in Sanskrit and Apabhramsha.
Vernacularisation was taking new forms outside the courtly milieu as well.
In the early fifteenth century the poet Bhalan adapted the classical Sanskrit
work KƗdambarƯ by transforming both the tale and the genre into the regional
language and idiom.31 But this was also the period in which Narasimha Maheta,
the poet who is regarded as Gujarat’s first poet or DGLNDYL, composed his
vast oeuvre of Vaishanava devotional poems in Gujarati. Narasimha’s poetry
transformed the Gujarati language as his compositions were not Sanskrit poems
in ‘Gujarati but Gujarati poems in Gujarati’.32 Moreover, Narasimha carved
out new possibilities of patronage for the poet in the devotional congregational
realm rather than through state support, revolutionising the regional literary
traditions.33 This elevated Gujarati to a language of poetry both akin to Sanskrit
but also distinct from it. Alongside these major changes in the development
and status of the Gujarati language, immense varieties of local and specialised
community dialects also blossomed at this time; the regional languages of
Saurashtra and Kachchh, and Khojki, the medium of devotional expression
used by the Ismaili Khojas, are some example of these. Both at the popular
and courtly levels then, the inhabitants of Gujarat had a variety of languages
and idioms to choose from.
It is against this backdrop that the choices the chieftains and sultans and
their poets made, to fashion their ideas of self, kingship, and the region, may be
viewed. Instead of the evolving regional vocabularies, the chieftains of Gujarat
chose to express their political aspirations in Sanskrit. What is more, while the
sultans were patrons of a variety of languages, and did in fact commission large-
scale historical writings in Persian and Arabic, in the mid-fifteenth century,
they too claimed the benefits of the universal Kshatriya values of kingship that

31 <DVKDVFKDQGUDµ)URP+HPDFDQGUDWR+LQG6YDUƗM¶
32 <DVKDVFKDQGUDµ)URP+HPDFDQGUDWR+LQG6YDUƗM¶
33 <DVKDVFKDQGUDµ)URP+HPDFDQGUDWR+LQG6YDUƗM¶
 Introduction 15

the Sanskrit eulogistic and epic traditions had to offer. Similarly illuminating
is the widespread use of Dimgal, which was a language tradition that was not
specific to Gujarat but was understood amongst warrior elites across western
India. Unlike Sanskrit, however, Dimgal was associated with specialist oral
performers, namely Bhats and Charans. These genealogist-poets held close ties
with the Rajput ruling groups all over western India and Gujarat. Thus, while
the narratives studied in this book display a close relationship to the context
in which they are produced, the medium of communication their composers
deployed were decidedly trans-regional.
I view these texts as having active, ‘dialogic and discursive’ relationships to
their particular contexts.34 Consequently, I situate these narratives firmly within
the historical contexts to which they belong.35 In their use of the transregional
languages and familiar idioms, these narratives draw their legitimacy from
the conventions of respected genres. Yet they also exhibit innovation, shaped
by and, in turn, shaping the patrons’ political and social aspirations. The
‘particular’ and the ‘place’ are crucial to the ways in which the protagonists
are fashioned in and presented by the composers of these narratives: the local
and universal are constantly intertwined to create the protagonists’ world. In
the play about the Chauhan king, Gangadas of Champaner, and in Mandalik’s
biography, both set in local courts, this interplay is visible throughout the
narratives (Chapter 3). In the regional sultan’s biography, however, the universal
takes precedence over details of historical accuracy (Chapter 4).
Bringing these texts together and reading them closely illuminates the
aspirations and self-articulations of elite warrior groups in fifteenth-century
Gujarat, as they negotiated the political processes that were in motion at the
regional and local levels. On one hand, through Sanskrit, these groups were
able to forge links to the prestigious and universally recognised Kshatriya
warrior status; on the other hand they could also draw on the more open-ended
warrior ethos through languages akin to the oral traditions. The political
prestige associated with the classical language of power appears to have

34 Inden, ‘Introduction: From Philological to Dialogical Texts,’ 13.

35 A number of scholars have contributed to the analysis of narratives that may have not
been considered ‘historical’ or containing a sense of the past until about three decades
ago. A growing body of scholarship now exists on pre-modern historical accounts and
ways in which they may be read within their contexts and specific genres. The most
recent among these studies include Zutshi, Kashmir's Contested Pasts. Also, see Thapar,
The Past Before Us.
16 In Praise of Kings

remained foundational in establishing the patrons’ self-image as successful

kings. On the other hand, pre-existing genres and linguistic conventions could
be substantially modified to suit the needs of the patrons: the Sanskrit play
and the biography of the Chudasama chieftain as well as the sultan’s Sanskrit
biography are examples of how new groups could be incorporated into classical
genres that were usually associated with Indic kings from great lineages of the
past. Far from composing conventionalised narratives about cardboard heroes,
the poets of these works drew upon a rich pool of ideological and linguistic
resources to represent their patrons in a time and space in which sovereignties
and identities were not fully established. I argue that, in producing these kinds
of narratives, the poets were making deliberate attempts to write both their
patrons’ personal histories, and more importantly, inscribe them into the wider
histories unfolding at the time.
While the fifteenth century was not the source of great canon-making
literature, it was a period in which a vast body of literary works, in a plethora
of languages and genres, was created in order to articulate a variety of
community-based and religious identities.36 Placing such narratives within a
longer history of local and regional state formation provides both a counter-
argument and a corrective to the dominant historiography of South Asia. The
fifteenth century has been a black hole of sorts in the historiography of the
subcontinent in general, but this lacuna has had an especially deep impact on
the historical studies of Gujarat. The dominant view – both in scholarship and
in the popular imagination – considers Turkic rule as a rupture in Gujarat’s
heroic Rajput past. By paying close attention to the vibrant literary culture of
the Rajput and sultanate courts, we can also recognise the political and cultural
continuities – not ruptures – that were at work.

Re-discovering the Fifteenth-century Warriors

In the mid-nineteenth century, an officer of the East India Company of
Scottish descent, Alexander Kinloch Forbes (1821–1865), was stationed in
Ahmadabad and Mahi Kantha in Gujarat as the Assistant Collector. Like
many of his colleagues at the time, Forbes was interested in unearthing the
history of the place he was sent to administer. Forbes’s attention was caught
by the works of Jain scholars who had written the histories of the Chaulukya

36 Orsini and Sheikh, Introduction to After Timur Left.

 Introduction 17

and Vaghela kingdoms. However, he was especially captivated by the people

he refers to as ‘bards’, the different communities of Bhats and Charans, who
specialised in the oral narration of the pasts and genealogies of the various
Rajput kingdoms that dotted the region. It was in their records and traditions
that Forbes found the stories of the chieftains and warriors who had been part
of the fifteenth-century political configurations. On the basis of these sources,
along with translations of a few Jain and Persian works, Forbes went on to
compose what has become a classical account of Gujarat’s past, 5ƗV0ƗOƗ:
Hindoo Annals of Western India (1856), in which he constructed the history
of Gujarat as the history of the Rajput chieftains. Forbes’s 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, which
foregrounded the Rajput polities, their origins, and their interactions with the
sultans, still stands out as distinct from later histories of the region (Chapter
5). These works, particularly the accounts of the colonial nationalist elite in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, gave precedence to the Indic
Chaulukya–Vaghela polities, viewing the sultanate-Rajput interactions as
indicators of the fifteenth-century decline.
The communities of Bhats and Charans, the preservers of the genealogies
and histories of the Rajput chieftains, were integral to their polities, not only as
historians but also as diplomats and guarantors. These men often accompanied
their patrons during battles, inspiring the warriors to fight and composing
poetry in their honour. They were also considered descendants of the Mother
Goddess and therefore enjoyed a sacred status in the communities they served.
Because of this status, the Bhats and Charans became a crucial link in the
preservation of not only lineages but also of the heroic ethos. In the centuries
that followed the fifteenth, while the courtly milieu of the entrepreneurial
polities was transformed under the Mughal rule, it was their battle narratives,
sustained by oral tradition, that continued to flourish and circulate.
It was these narratives of the Bhats and Charans that Forbes documented.
While the fifteenth-century narratives that I have analysed, such as
5D۬mallachanda, *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOƯNDPDKƗNƗY\D,
and 5ƗMDYLQRGD, were not among Forbes’s discoveries, his work on oral
compositions plays a crucial role in the understanding of the period. Oral
traditions further confirm the complex interplay of ideas and power between the
mobile polities of the region in which the sultans and Rajputs played significant
roles. Although his history is not free of colonial bias, the oral traditions
recorded by Forbes present a fluid, rather than entirely confrontational, picture
of the politics of the region, differing sharply from much of the scholarship
that would appear in the years to follow.
18 In Praise of Kings

Plan of the Book

With the exception of the first, the chapters in this monograph are centred on
one or two individual narratives. Chapter 1 provides the setting; a historical
map that sets the stage for the ways in which the region and its politics evolved
in the fifteenth century. It traces three important developments that shaped
the fifteenth century society and polity: first, the establishment of the Indic
polity of the Chaulukya–Vaghelas; second, the rise and decline of the Muslim
empire of the Delhi sultanate, and third, the emergence of the local Rajput
chieftains, who were once pastoralist warriors, and who began to settle down
and establish their patrimonies in the region before the foundation of the great
fifteenth-century polity of the Muzaffarid sultans. While discussing each of
these political formations, I also map the linguistic and literary choices that
were made during this period to articulate ideas of kingship and authority as
well as express community identities.
The changes in the early fifteenth century are reflected in the literary
culture of the Rajput chieftains, the topic of Chapter 2. This chapter centres
on 5D۬PDOODchanda, a battle narrative in which Ranmal, the Rathod chieftain
of Idar, fights against the new governor sent by the Delhi sultan. Ranmal, in
this narrative, is supported neither by an elaborate court nor a long genealogy
linking him to an illustrious royal lineage. Instead, Ranmal is portrayed as a
solitary hero concerned with the defence of his patrimonies and honour. This
work is in Dimgal, prefaced by Sanskrit, and interspersed with words from
the Persian register. The story has the fluid quality of an oral narrative and,
interestingly, is composed by a Brahmin poet, Sridhara Vyasa. It is also laden
with stock descriptions of a Kshatriya warrior’s duty to protect Brahmins,
women, and cows against the atrocities of the Muslims. This multilingual
layering of genres, traditions, and tropes, reflects the crystallising self-
representation of chieftains, such as Ranmal, who appear, simultaneously, to
be seeking a place in the larger varna hierarchy, as well as maintaining ties
with the more fluid warrior traditions in this period. The two languages serve
different functions: the Sanskrit section portrays Ranmal, a local chieftain with
limited territorial control, as a great Indic king, whereas the Dimgal portion
depicts Ranmal as a warrior, and his triumphs on the battlefield, replete with
copious descriptions of blood and gore.
As the fifteenth century progressed, the more successful of the Rajput
chieftains in Gujarat also patronised Sanskrit poetry alongside oral
traditions, which continued to shape their notions of identity and authority.
 Introduction 19

In the narratives discussed in Chapter 3, *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND

and 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWDwhich are addressed to chieftains who controlled
strategically located hill kingdoms, we find resonances of the cosmopolitan
order that existed during the erstwhile Chaulukya world. Unlike Idar, the
Chauhan kingdom of Champaner and the Chudasama kingdom of Junagadh
are depicted as having elaborate courts, courtiers, and genealogies that
proclaimed links with prestigious Puranic heroes. Above all, their rulers
saw themselves as repositories of all the virtues demanded of true Kshatriya
kings. Nevertheless, their political aspirations remained modest and limited to
the areas they already controlled. Despite the violent battles with the enemy
sultanate or yavana rulers depicted in the narratives, these men sought control
and fame in their own local territories rather than the entire region. The use
of the cosmopolitan Sanskrit and the aestheticised kavya genre was meant to
establish the patrons’ rule firmly within the region, rather than transport their
fame across the subcontinent.
Chapter 4 examines a significant Sanskrit text entitled 5ƗMDYLQRGD, ‘pleasure
of the king’, by a poet named Udayaraja. Drawing on the classical kavya
tradition of Sanskrit poetry and using the markers of an Indic paramount king
or chakravarti, whose kingdom is the centre of Indian subcontinent, this text
allowed Mahmud Begada, a Muslim sultan, to draw on the eclectic ideological
resources available to him. In contrast to the Sanskrit works composed for
the local Rajput chieftains (Chapter 3), or the multilingual text in honour of
Ranmal (Chapter 2), which highlight the context of the protagonists’ rule, the
panegyric addressed to Sultan Mahmud conveys deeply universal values of
kingship that could be applied to any great king.
The Rajput chieftains of Gujarat, their literary world, and the articulations
of kingship and authority that emerged during the fifteenth century, had
long-term implications in the making of Gujarat as region. While the sultans
were overpowered by the Mughals at the end of the sixteenth century, and the
Mughals in turn by the Marathas and the British, the Rajput kingdoms endured
and went on to constitute the over two hundred princely states that comprised
Gujarat on the eve of independence. The significance of this historical legacy
was first articulated in a text entitled 5ƗV0ƗOƗ+LQGRR$QQDOVRI:HVWHUQ,QGLD
by a colonial administrator named Alexander Forbes in the mid-nineteenth
century. Forbes drew primarily upon the oral accounts and written sources
related to these Rajput groups that were abundantly available through the local
elites to write a ‘modern’ history of the region. The end result was something
of a hybrid of his colonial imperialist ideals, ‘modern’ history, and older
20 In Praise of Kings

articulations of kingship and authority that were based in the Rajputs’ own
itinerant martial pasts. The fifth chapter is a reading of 5ƗV0ƗOƗThere we
see that, contrary to the popular perception of Gujarat as a land of merchants
and traders, it was the history of the Rajputs and their interactions with the
sultans that went into the making of one of the first attempts to articulate the
idea of Gujarat as a modern region.
 Setting the Stage 21

Setting the Stage

Contextualising Fifteenth-century Gujarat

In the fifteenth century, the Sultanate of Gujarat emerged as the most powerful
of the kingdoms that succeeded the Delhi sultanate. The regional sultans of
Gujarat, sometimes referred to as the Muzzafarid or the Ahmadshahi dynasty,
were erstwhile nobles of the Delhi sultanate who declared their independence
in 1407 from the already dwindling authority at Delhi, and their rule in Gujarat
lasted until the 1580s – over a hundred and fifty years – when the Mughal
emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) defeated the last ruling sultan on the plains
of Saurashtra. The Muzaffarids integrated the diverse frontier region and its
different geographical and social elements. And in doing so they created a
distinctive vocabulary and idiom of ‘Gujarati’ regional rule.1
In c. 1407, Zafar Khan, the former noble of Delhi and governor of Gujarat,
reluctantly declared himself the independent sultan of the province. While
Delhi had been sacked at the hands of Timur in 1398, the prestige the former
capital and its rulers commanded remained intact.2 Therefore, many of the
regional governors of provinces such as Jaunpur, Malwa, and Gujarat did not
so much revolt against their former masters as seek less confrontational means
of consolidating their power.3 Zafar Khan, Gujarat’s governor, took the title
of Muzaffar Shah, laying the foundations of what was to become one of the
longest-lasting regional sultanates to emerge during the fifteenth century. At

1 For a detailed analysis of the ways in which the regional Muzaffarid sultans achieved
the integration of the region, see Sheikh, Forging a Region.
2 Gujarat had been incorporated as a province of the Delhi sultanate in the early fourteenth
century and was administered by a governor sent from the capital until 1407.
3 Digby, ‘After Timur Left: North India in the Fifteenth Century,’ in Orsini and Sheikh
After Timur Left, 47–59.
22 In Praise of Kings

the time that Zafar Khan declared himself sultan, throwing off the shackles
of the moribund Delhi sultanate under Mahmud Tughlaq II (r. 1324–1351), the
region had long been an imperial province, referred to both as ‘Gujarat’ or by
the name of its capital, Anhilvada (or Naharwala in the Persian chronicles).
The regional sultans, Muzaffar Shah and his successors, particularly Sultan
Mahmud Begada (r. 1459–1511), strove to integrate different geographical,
political, and societal elements of the region. By 1480, Mahmud Begada, who
styled himself ‘Gujarati’, had established military control over most of the
territories of the modern region, as well as, at times, parts of Malwa, southern
Rajasthan, and the southern coastal lands stretching almost all the way to
present-day Mumbai.4 It was most of this territory that, with Akbar’s conquest,
went on to form the Mughal province or subah of Gujarat.
Three major developments preceded this regional imperium and set the
stage for the political and cultural transformations that Gujarat would undergo
in the fifteenth century. The first of these was the Chaulukya–Vaghela empire
(c. 942–1304), an Indic polity that lasted over three hundred years until the
establishment of the Delhi sultanate’s rule over Gujarat in 1304. It was during
this time span that some of the processes of regional integration began, which
were brought to fruition in the fifteenth century. This was also the period during
which the core territories from which Gujarat would be ruled for subsequent
centuries were stabilised. Further, the Chaulukyas, and the Vaghelas who
succeeded them, managed to reap the benefits of Gujarat’s long-standing links
with the Indian Ocean trade networks as well as with the Arab and Persian
merchants active on the coastal areas of the region; this growth in commercial
activity bears witness to the emerging cosmopolitan society at the time.
Despite being of humble origins, the Chaulukyas, and later the Vaghelas,
established a vast polity that claimed universal Indic ideals; this is particularly
evident in the literature and architecture they patronised. They expressed
their royal ideologies in the cosmopolitan languages of Sanskrit, Prakrit, and
Apabhramsha. Simultaneously, they laid claim to Puranic norms of kingship,
supporting a sizable number of Shaiva temples. But the Chaulukyas, and
particularly the Vaghelas, also favoured the Jains, a trading community that
came to be closely associated with the state due to its mercantile skills and
achievements. By the twelfth century, the Chaulukyas had adopted a royal
order and vocabulary that drew upon the age-old universal Indic traditions
of kingship; however, they also fostered a polity in a territory populated by

4 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 27.

 Setting the Stage 23

newly ascendant warrior chieftains, Brahmin and Jain scribes and scholars,
and a wide range of immigrant and local trading groups that benefitted from
Gujarat’s oceanic and internal trade routes.
The second major development contributing to the transformation of
Gujarat was the conquest of the Chaulukya–Vaghela territories by the rulers
of the Delhi sultanate in the closing years of the thirteenth century. Gujarat,
particularly the Somanatha temple located on its western frontier, had witnessed
incursions from the north and northwest during the previous centuries as well.
These attacks had been had been characterised by plundering raids rather
than any attempts by the attackers to establish stronger political ties with
the region. It was only with the Delhi Sultan ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji’s conquest
that Gujarat became more enduringly politically and economically linked to
the transregional empire of Delhi, and thus to the wider Persianate world.5
The Delhi sultanate, with its new political, cultural, and military norms, was
the final blow to this old order that was already in decline. Yet, once in the
province, the governors sent by the Delhi authorities had to accommodate local
realities and were quick to establish links with the local power structures; it was
these links that would eventually facilitate the formation of the independent
sultanate of Gujarat in the fifteenth century. Even at the height of its power,
and despite its expansionist ambitions, the Delhi sultanate’s control over the
provinces remained tenuous as local chieftains and imperial representatives
stationed on the ground grew in strength. Persian was adopted as the language
of courtly splendour from this time onwards by a number of Turkic powers; the
sultans of Delhi were no different. However, numerous Sanskrit and bilingual
inscriptions were also commissioned in this period and included the new
dispensation in their vocabularies. Similarly, the Jains and other mercantile
communities continued to grow in prominence during the Delhi sultanate rule
over the region.
With the decline of the Chaulukyas and Vaghelas, space was created for a
third crucial political process that would shape the region in the subsequent
years. From the twelfth century onwards, Gujarat had seen the migration of
men of obscure lineages into the region from the north and northwest. These
men – warriors, pastoralists, merchants – began to settle in the region. With the
end of Chaulukya–Vaghela rule, these men grew stronger in their patrimonies,
building forts and laying claim to the region’s resources. These local chieftains

5 ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji first attacked the Anhilvada kingdom in 1298, but it was only after
his second incursion in 1304 that the region was established as a province of the Delhi
empire; it remained so until 1407.
24 In Praise of Kings

had not been destroyed by the new imperial wave of the Delhi sultanate but
in fact been reconstituted and would ultimately become the most important
political elements the new dispensation was forced to negotiate with. These
men, later known as Rajputs, also established courts in which new vocabularies
of kingship would be developed in the aftermath of the Chaulukya cosmopolis.
New power structures were forged and contested during the period between
the establishment of the Chaulukya dynasty in c. 940 and the end of Delhi
sultanate rule in Gujarat in c. 1407. Literature, and to a certain extent material
culture, also underwent great change, largely due to the courtly patronage
patterns of Chaulukyas and the Vaghelas. While several conventional accounts
view the end of the Chaulukya–Vaghela reign at the hands of the Delhi
sultanate, with its wholly different political, cultural, and military conventions,
as representing the end of the ‘glory’ of Gujarat, the discontinuities from the
Delhi sultanate proved short-lived, giving way rather quickly to the Gujarat
sultanate, which represented further transformation in the patronage landscape
that was to shape the fifteenth century.

The Chaulukya–Vaghela Polity, c. 940–1304

Around the year 942, Mularaja, a scion of the Chaulukya family, is said to
have killed his maternal uncle, Chavada or Chapotkata Samantasimha of
Anhilpataka, on the central plains of Gujarat, and established a dynasty in his
own name that would rule over Gurjaradesha, the name the region was known
by at the time, for over two centuries; after that, another branch of the family, the
Vaghelas, established themselves as the Chaulukya’s successors. The Chavadas,
from whom Mularaja usurped the throne, were the local feudatories of the
northern Indian dynasties of Gurajara–Pratiharas. Later sources inform us that
they were most likely previously forest dwellers who had managed to acquire
land and establish territorial control over parts of northern and eastern Gujarat.6
With Mularaja’s takeover of the Chavada capital at Anhilpataka, or what would
subsequently be known as Anhilvada–Patan, began the three-hundred-year rule
of a regional Indic polity of the Chaulukya-Vaghela dynasties that participated
in what Sheldon Pollock has called the Sanskrit cosmopolis, and adopted a
vocabulary of universal kingship that dominated in India and Southeast Asia

6 Merutungacharya, 3UDEDQGKDFLQWƗPDQL, 18–20. The 5DWQDPƗOD, composed by the

twelfth-century Brahmin poet, Krishnaji, also mentions a similar story about the
establishment of Chapotkata or Chavada rule. See Krishnaji, The Ratan Málá.
 Setting the Stage 25

throughout the first millennium of the common era.7 The establishment of

the Chaulukya rule over the city of Anhilpataka also marks the beginning of
a period in which Gujarat experienced a number of transformations in terms
of expansion of settlements and the rise of new political and social groups.
This formed the basis of a nascent regional cohesion upon which the Gujarati
or Muzaffarid sultans were able to lay the foundations of their independent
kingdom in the fifteenth century.
The Chaulukyas have widely been associated with the end of the pan-Indian
imperial dynasties, the Gurjara–Pratiharas of Kanyakubja, which held sway
over most of north India until the end of the tenth century. Following the decline
of this power and its rival kingdom, the Rashtrakutas in the Deccan, several
smaller dynasties such as the Paramaras, Chandellas, Kalachuri, Chaulukyas,
and Gahadavalas came to control different parts of northern India. This
proliferation of dynasties, as B. D. Chattopadhyaya has asserted, was related
to the continuing process of state formation at the regional and local levels,
which, in turn, was connected to the growth of trade and urban centres from
the early medieval period onwards.8 The rise of Chaulukya rule in Anhilvada–
Patan and its subsequent territorial expansion can be related to this process.
Beginning with Mularaja’s (r. 942–996) accession, the Chaulukyas embarked
on an energetic expansionist programme; over the next century, they would
extend their rule into territories across Gujarat and parts of southern Rajasthan
and Malwa. Their vast epigraphic records suggest that this included the
subjugation of clans and forest-dwelling groups like Bhils on the peripheries
of what was to become the core of their kingdom, Anhilvada–Patan. The
Chaulukyas’ quest for territorial control reached something of a peak under
Jayasimha Siddharaja (r. 1094–1143), who is accepted, by contemporary writers
and later historians alike, as the dynasty’s greatest ruler. Siddharaja defeated
Khengar or Navghana of Girnar in Saurashtra and conducted successful
campaigns against Malwa as well as its surrounding forest regions. The
Chahamanas of Nadula and Shakambhari accepted Chaulukya overlordship
during this period.9 Siddharaja’s successful campaigns increased the size of
his territory and the Chaulukya kingdom achieved its maximum expanse –

7 For elaboration on the Sankrit cosmopolis see Pollock, The Language of the Gods and
‘The Sanskrit Cosmopolis, 300–1300,’ 209–217.
8 Chattopadhyaya, ‘Urban Centres in Early Medieval India,’ 155–86, and ‘Political
Processes and the Structure of Polity,’ 183–222.
9 For an account of Chahamanas of Nadula as feudatories of the Chaulukyas, see Mita,
‘Polity and Kingship of Early Medieval Rajasthan,’ 89–117.
26 In Praise of Kings

encompassing Saurashtra, southern Rajputana, and parts of Malwa – during

his reign.10 With Kumarapala (r. 1143–1174), who followed Siddharaja as the
dynasty’s next most prominent king, Chaulukya domains extended to the
Vindhya ranges, at least as far south as the river Tapti, and as far north as the
southern reaches of Rajasthan. Saurashtra and Kachchh to the west were also
a part of Kumarapala’s domain.
A few decades after Kumarapala’s rule, Chaulukya power in Gujarat saw
the beginnings of the internal strife and external chaos that would eventually
lead to the relinquishment of the Anhilvada territories to the Vaghelas, who had
formerly been their courtiers. This was also the period when Delhi launched
an attack on the region: in 1197, the Ghurid ruler, Mu‘izz al-Din Sam’s general,
Qutb al-Din Aybeg, looted Anhilvada, although this did not result in the
acquisition of territory for the Delhi sultan.11 The Vaghelas retained power in
the region by claiming descent from the Chaulukyas but were able to maintain
only nominal control over parts of Saurashtra and north Gujarat. With the
conquest of Gujarat by ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji’s army in 1297–98, the Vaghelas
lost control over central Gujarat, although branches of the family continued
to exist in north Gujarat and central India.12
Settlement expanded and trade continued to thrive through the many
political changes that occurred beginning in the eleventh century. As they
augmented their territories, the Chaulukyas also built towns and settlements
along the important trade routes, taking advantage of their lucrative revenues
and encouraging mercantile activities. Soon after its takeover by Mularaja,
Anhilvada grew into a prosperous urban centre. Similarly, Siddharaja
Jayasimha extended Siddhapur and also built the large Shaiva temple complex
of Rudramahalaya. Several other towns located in the hinterlands of major

10 Majumdar, Chaulukyas of Gujarat, 82–83. Inscriptions attributed to Siddharaja, or

bearing his name, have been found in several parts of the region, including Udaipur,
Sambar, and Ujjain. The Dohad inscription of 1140 also speaks of Siddharaja Jayasimha
as the ruler of *XUMDUDPDQGDOD and notes that he imprisoned the kings of Saurashtra
and Malwa. See Dhruva, ‘The Dohad Inscription,’ 158–62.
11 The Chaulukya empire had already witnessed two other attacks from the north and
northwest. The first of these was in 1126 against Bhima (r. 1022–1064) under whose
reign, Mahmud Ghazna attacked the Somanatha temple, and the second was in the
reign of Mularaja II (r. 1176–1179), who resisted attacks by Ghurid sultan Mu‘izz al-Din
Muhammad bin Sam, also known in Indic sources as Hammira (Amira) and the lord
of the Turushkas.
12 The Baghela ruling family of Rewa also traditionally claimed its descent from the
Vaghelas of Gujarat.
 Setting the Stage 27

trade routes also flourished during this period. Bhinmal, or Srimala, which
lay on the route to Sind from western India, grew into an important town,
and Dabhoi, Kapadvanj, Godhra, and Dohad emerged as successful centres
of trade on the eastern route between the Malwa hinterland and Khambhat or
Cambay.13 Port towns like Cambay and Somanatha also prospered, reaching
a scale far greater than that of the mainland’s urban centres.
The Chaulukya–Vaghela rulers’ temple-building spurred the growth of
metropolitan areas. Kings including Mularaja and Siddharaja built large
temples and encouraged Brahmins to settle in the towns of Gujarat, making
generous gifts of villages to them for their support. In addition to asserting
their political dominance over the region and their rivals, the temples also
facilitated the development of the urban economy and society. The inscriptions
on public and administrative epigraphs from the period bear witness to this
fact, often indicating the place of origin of the Brahmins who settled in Gujarat.
Mularaja’s Balera copper plates, dated as early as c. 995, for instance, record
the grant of a village to Dirghacharya, a Brahmin who had migrated from
Kanyakubja in north India.14 Similarly, an endowment from Chaulukya king
Karna’s reign records the grant of a village in south Gujarat to a Brahmin whose
family was originally from Madhyadesha.15 Numerous such examples exist
of donations and grants to Brahmins, including those who had been settled in
the region for generations and come to occupy specific parts of it, such as the
Modha Brahmins of Modhera or the Nagars, who saw Vadnagar (Visnagara
or Vishalnagara) as their traditional home.
From their modest beginnings as descendants of forest chieftains in the tenth
century, the Chaulukyas, by the end of the twelfth century, had extended their
sway over much of Gujarat, and their empire included territories in southern
Rajasthan and western Malwa. Most significantly, with the establishment of
Chaulukya power, a strip of territory extending from north to south, roughly
from the area north of Patan to Cambay on the coast, became the core territory
from which Gujarat would be ruled in subsequent centuries.16
Along with the expansion of their empire the Chaulukyas embarked on an
ideological programme, participating in the universal ideals of kingship that
were the norm during this period. The large-scale temples they built and the

13 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 32.

14 Konow, µ%DOHUD3ODWHVRI0XODUƗMD¶±
15 Acharya, Historical Inscriptions from Gujarat 2, 18–24.
16 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 67.
28 In Praise of Kings

Chaulukya court itself, emerged as sites for the extensive patronage of literary
activities, including the composition of epic poems, dramas, and significantly,
a vast number of inscriptions granting lands, primarily to Brahmins, but often
also accompanied by long genealogies and eulogies to the ruling kings and
their ancestors.
The vast array of public inscriptions documenting donations and land grants
from the Chaulukya–Vaghela period bears witness to the image of kingship
these rulers sought to project. The records of the practical administrative
matters of these grants were always preceded by genealogies and praise
poems or prashastis dedicated to the patrons. In composing these, poets at the
Chaulukya court drew from the pool of inscriptional practices of kavya that
were available at the time to establish their patrons’ power and fame. Typical
examples of this can be seen in the work of poet Shripala, who served at the
courts of Jayasimha Siddharaja and Kumarapala, two of the dynasty’s most
prominent rulers. As Pollock has pointed out, Shripala, in his Vadanagara and
Bilpank prashastis, appears much more concerned with announcing his patron
dynasty’s power upon the earth than with the accuracy of the genealogy of
the kings or the facticity of their military achievements.17 Instead, his aim is
‘to give voice to what is enduring and charismatic about kingly power’ and to
demonstrate the different constituents of fame such as philanthropy, building
projects, and battles, all of which were practices that were familiar across the
landscape of the Sanskrit prashasti.18 The titles of the patrons, which were
drawn from Puranic hierarchies of Indic kings, and the rulers’ close association
with Puranic deities also reinforced the function of eulogies to grant their
patrons universal fame. The ideals of kingship these eulogies conveyed were
not, therefore, meant to be specific, but general, universally recognised, traits
of great kings. Sanskrit inscriptions of considerable length continued to be
patronised throughout the thirteenth century, when the Vaghelas succeeded
their former overlords. 19
Through their literary patronage, the Chaulukya rulers of Anhilvada aspired
to the spread their kingly glory far beyond their kingdom of Gujarat. In addition
to the wide number and variety of inscriptions commissioned by the Chaulukya

17 Pollock, Language of Gods, 145. For biographical details of the poet, see Sandesara,
µĝUƯSƗOD7KH%OLQG3RHWODXUHDWH¶±
18 Pollock, Language of the Gods, 145.
19 *DGUHµ7KH1ƗQDND3UDĞDVWLV¶±$QRWKHULPSRUWDQWH[DPSOHRIDprashasti from
WKLVSHULRGFRPHVIURPWKHUHLJQRIDODWHU9DJKHODNLQJ6DUDৄJDGHYD6HH%KOHU
µ7KH&LQWUD3UDĞDVWLRI6DUDQJDGHYD¶±
 Setting the Stage 29

and Vaghela kings, a vast array of other literary works produced by poets
and writers associated with their courts evidences the existence of a vibrant
scholarly circle that blossomed under their rule.20 This diverse body of literature
included works in Sanskrit as well as Apabhramsha and Prakrit, the two other
cosmopolitan languages in use at the time. The literati, that were an important
part of the Chaulukya and Vaghela kingly aspirations, were also instrumental
in the creation of an image of the kings not only as powerful Kshatriya rulers
but also as generous patrons of literature and poetry YLViYLV their rivals,
particularly the rulers of the neighbouring kingdom of Malwa. The Jain scholar-
monk Hemachandra’s work on Sanskrit-Prakrit-Apabhramsha grammar, the
Siddhahemacandra, was composed at the behest of Jayasimha Siddharaja and
displays a keen awareness of the relationship between language and power. In
this period, works like Siddhahemacandra were meant to confer royal glory
upon the king, and scholarly renown upon the grammarian, and grant spiritual
benefit to them both.21 Hemachandra’s grammar was meant for the larger
world, not solely the immediate context in which it was produced.22 The Jain
preceptor held an important position at the court of Jayasimha Siddharaja and
Kumarapala; several Jain sources even suggest that Hemachandra converted
the two kings to the Jain faith. The Siddhahemacandra was composed with
the implicit purpose of eclipsing the Sanskrit grammar by the legendary
king Bhoja (1011–1055), who was widely known for his literary skills and
patronage.23 Copies of the grammar were apparently sent to other kingdoms
of the subcontinent, particularly Kashmir, which was viewed as the centre of
learning and the abode of the goddess Sarasvati.24
For the Chaulukya rulers, literary patronage went hand in hand with the
construction of a wide range of temples. The temple complexes built by the
Chaulukyas not only became centres of economic activity but also symbolised
their dominance over the region. The ultimate object of dharma for the
Vaishnava or Shaiva king was the construction or patronage of a temple. It was
with this that he ‘hoped to top off the cosmo-moral order constituted by his

20 For a brief survey of literary works patronised by Chaulukyas, see Majumdar,

Chaulukyas of Gujarat, 403–20. For details of the scholars and literary productions
at under the Jain ministers Vastupala and Tejahpala see Sandesara, Literary Circle of
0DKƗPƗW\D9DVWXSƗOD.
21 Pollock, Language of the Gods, 182.
22 Pollock, Language of the Gods, 182.
23 Pollock, Language of the Gods, 181.
24 Sandesara, /LWHUDU\&LUFOHRI0DKƗPƗW\D9DVWXSƗOD 11.
30 In Praise of Kings

imperial kingdom.’25 As several of their inscriptions indicate, the Chaulukyas

viewed the kingdom itself as being blessed by Shiva, and kings like Kumarapala
were adorned with titles such as ‘one who has obtained the boon of the lord
of Uma, that is, Shiva’ (umapativaralabdha). The numerous attacks on the
Somanatha temple during the Chaulukya period show that these buildings
were not only storehouses of wealth but were viewed as symbols of the rulers’
power – even by those outside the kingdom.26
The end of the Vaghela rule saw the rise of the Jain merchant–minister
brothers, Vastupala and Tejahpala, whose vast marble temple buildings
dedicated to their faith evidence another form of political representation that
had emerged in the region prior to the arrival of Islamic rule. The two brothers,
as has been noted, controlled the entire administrative and military operations
of the Anhilvada kingdom and became protagonists in a number of Sanskrit
texts and epigraphic praise poems composed in the same elaborate styles used
in compositions written for kings.27 The support of these rulers for building

25 Inden, ‘Hierarchies of Kings in Early Medieval India,’ 133.

26 For the political significance of the Somanatha temple and the complex history of
Muslim raids on it, see Davis, The Lives of Indian Images, ‘Images Overthrown’,
±DQGµ5HFRQVWUXFWLRQVRI6RPDQƗWKƗ¶±DQG7KDSDUSomanatha. Soon
after his accession, Mularaja built a temple dedicated to Shiva as Mulaswami (Mula’s
Lord) and later another temple dedicated to Somanatha at Mandali-nagara, apparently
at the god’s own bidding. Such was the king’s dedication that he is also said to have
travelled to Somanatha daily to worship the divinity. This is unlikely, as the round trip
between Anhilvada and Somanatha is over 700 miles. Tradition has it that Somanatha,
pleased by his dedication, promised to bring the ocean to Anhilvada. When the diety
arrived, as promised, a number of pools in the town turned brackish proving that the
ocean had actually accompanied him. To celebrate the Somanatha’s arrival, Mularaja
built the Tripurushaprasada temple at Anhilvada. This temple was further adorned
with a ‘jewelled peak’ after Mahmud Ghazna’s attack on the kingdom. Apart from the
Rudramahalaya temple at Siddhapur, Jayasimha Siddharaja also built Sahasralimga lake
at Patan. In addition to this, at the behest of his mother, Mayanalladevi, he remitted
the taxes being levied on the Anhilvada-Saurashtra border to the pilgrims going to
Somanatha. Similarly, later kings, including Kumarapala, who was known to be a
follower of the Jain faith, also maintained their patronage and devotion to Shiva, and
more specifically to his incarnation as Somanatha. Campbell, Gazetteer, 160–161, 172.
27 See for instance Hammiramadamardana, a play by Jayasimha Suri written sometime
between c. 1220 and 1230, and the 9DVWXSƗOD7HMDKSƗODSUDĞDVWLby the same author. For
the text of the play and the prashasti see Dalal, Hammiramadamardana of Jayasimha
Suri$OVRVHH%KOHU7KH-DJDGnjFKDULWDRI6DUYƗQDQGD.
 Setting the Stage 31

projects also encouraged the development of a regional architectural style.28

This regional style, often referred to by art historians as the ‘Maru-Gurjara’
style, reached its most elaborate form from the eleventh century onwards and
was extensively patronised by the Chaulukya kings.29
Aside from the Puranic kingly ideals, the Chaulukyas also shared a close
and complex relationship with Jainism, as a number of scholars and poets
who served at their courts were adherents of this faith. While the epigraphic
records share in the Puranic discourse of kingship, many other texts composed
by the Jains reveal a somewhat different view of Chaulukya rulers; as kings
who were morally superior to their rivals because of their association with the
sect. Apart from their practical involvement with everyday political affairs,
the Jains also engaged in the broader discourse on the nature of kingship.30 In
their many historical and literary narratives from this period (and also in the
subsequent centuries) they portrayed the way in which the rulers should act
towards the Jain community and in that sense advanced a distinct theory of
kingship.31 Vaghela king Ajayapala’s Jain minister Yashahapala, for instance,
composed a play called the 0RKDUƗMDSDUƗMD\D, or ‘conquest of king moha or
illusion’, describing Kumarapala’s conversion to the Jain faith and the triumph

28 The architectural style in the western Indian region encompassing Gujarat, Rajasthan,
and Sindh began to develop distinctive features from the eighth century onwards.
Alka Patel has recently noted that while Chaulukya ascendancy had little to do with
the initiation of this process of architectural consolidation, it is possible that the
extensive royal, noble, and householder patronage was instrumental in bringing about
its culmination. Patel, %XLOGLQJ&RPPXQLWLHVLQ*XMDUƗW, 5–6.
29 On the architectural styles of Chaulukya temples and details of the building activities
of individual rulers, see Dhaky, ‘The Chronology of Solanki Temples of Gujarat,’ 1–81.
30 Cort, ‘Who is King?’ 86.
31 Cort, ‘Who is King?’ 86. For a detailed discussion on the different genres of Jain
history, see Cort, ‘Genres of Jain History,’ 469–506. Toshikazu Arai’s study of the
3UDEDQGKDFLQWƗPD۬Lshows how its fourteenth-century Jain author, Merutunga, claims
the moral superiority of the religion over Brahminical kingship. Merutunga’s narrative
begins with stories of exemplary kings of north India, but it is primarily concerned
with the kings of Gurjaradesha or Gujarat (the Chaulukyas) and Malavamandala or
Malwa (the Paramaras). The kings of these counties are portrayed as archenemies and
their attributes are contrasted with one another. As Arai has demonstrated, despite
being Shaivas, the Gurjara kings are viewed by the author as representing the superior
Jain ideals of kingship through their austerity and fortitude, whereas the kings of
Malwa, though generous patrons of the arts, are represented as Brahminical rulers
who were wont to succumb to worldly pleasures. See Arai, ‘Jaina Kingship in the
3UDEDQGKDFLQWƗPD৆L¶±
32 In Praise of Kings

of the good moral values represented by the Chaulukya kings.32 Moreover, as

noted, the Jain ministers, Vastupala and Tejahpala, also acquired a degree of
prominence that made them the subjects of literary compositions and eulogistic
inscriptions in the likeness of kings. The story of another Jain merchant,
Jagadadeva or Jagdu, from the Vaghela period, also in Sanskrit, indicates how
prosperous merchants could also aspire to political power. Jagdu, the merchant
from Bhadreshwar in Kachchh, not only supplied the Vaghela king, Vishaldeva,
with grains from his stores during a famine, but also built a fortification wall
around the city for its protection, constructed a Shaiva temple, and sponsored
the repairs of a mosque, despite being a Jain himself.33
Aside from adopting Puranic and Jainistic ideals of kingship, the Chaulukyas
also achieved a degree of societal integration by patronising other religious
communities. While in this period Vaishnavism remained secondary to
Shaivism and the Jain faith, several Vaishnava temples were endowed by
prominent members of society.34 With the settlement of various itinerant
pastoralist warrior groups in the region, a number of local cults and their
shrines also flourished. Furthermore, the urban centres of Gujarat had attracted
various Muslim trading communities for centuries through the Indian Ocean
maritime networks. Port cities like Veraval and Cambay had been to home
to vibrant communities of Arab and Ismaili traders who had commissioned
religious and domestic structures encouraging the rise of a local style of Islamic
architecture. Inscriptions and epitaphs found at Cambay, Patan, Veraval,
Junagadh, and Somanatha speak of a number of endowments made by Muslims
and also record the deaths of notables including men of religion, prominent
merchants, and women during the Chaulukya rule.35 Similarly, the existence
of bilingual inscriptions in Arabic or Persian and Sanskrit from this period are
indicative of the acceptance of Muslim patronage to places of worship under
Chaulukya–Vaghela rule even towards its tail end.36

32 Sandesara, Literary Circle, 15 and Majumdar, Chaulukyas of Gujarat, 411–12.

33 %KOHU7KH-DJDGnjFKDULWDRI6DUYƗQDQGD.
34 Dhruva, ‘The Dohad Inscription,’ 158–62.
35 Desai, ‘Arabic Inscriptions of the Rajput Period from Gujarat,’ 1–24. Desai also studies
thirty epigraphs from Cambay and finds that a number of the people mentioned in them
were from different parts of Iran. Also, see Desai, ‘Some Fourteenth Century Epitaphs’,
2–58.
36 A Persian-Sanskrit inscription from 1304, for instance, records an endowment made to
the Jami mosque in Cambay during the reign of Karan Vaghela. The Sanskrit portion
of the inscription acknowledges the endowment and asks the local chieftains to do the
same. Details of this inscription can be found in Desai. ‘A Persian-Sanskrit Inscription,’
13–20.
 Setting the Stage 33

By the end of the thirteenth century, the Vaghelas did not control the
same territorial expanse as their predecessors, the Chaulukyas. Despite the
dismantling of the Chaulukya–Vaghela rule, however, the richly diverse society
that developed during their exceptionally long dispensation had a lasting impact
on the way the region would evolve in the centuries that followed.

Delhi Sultans in Gujarat, c. 1304–1407

In the early decades of the fourteenth century, the Vaghelas were violently
overthrown by the Delhi sultanate armies. ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji (c. 1296–1316),
the most expansionist of the Delhi rulers, launched an attack on Vaghela King
Karandeva’s capital in 1304, bringing a decisive end to the long reign of the
Chaulukya–Vaghela Indic polity. While Gujarat, particularly the prosperous
Somanatha temple, in the Saurashtra peninsula, had seen several incursions
from the north and northwest over the past two centuries, including a recent
attack by Khalji in c. 1298,37 it was his second attack, roughly around 1304,
that was to have a lasting effect on the region. Various historical accounts tell
us of Karandeva being forced to flee first to Deogir in the Deccan and thence
further south to Warangal, where he sought asylum with Raja Rudradeva.
Although Gujarat, due to its trade links across the Indian Ocean, was one
of the earliest regions in the subcontinent to come in contact with Islam,
Khalji’s conquest extended Delhi’s rule and established a Muslim governor or
muqta’ there.38 The numerous public inscriptions that followed this event and
proliferated in the subsequent decades are indicative of the beginnings and
rapid acknowledgement of a new political dispensation.39

37 In 1299 ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji sent his brother Ulugh Khan and his wazir Nusrat Khan
to attack Gujarat. The incursion was most likely aimed at the sacking of Somathantha
in emulation of Mahmud of Ghazni’s attacks in the previous century. It seems that
Karandeva Vaghela’s attempts to stop their entry in to Gujarat were thwarted and
Somathatha and Anhilvada were sacked. Nusrat Khan went on to plunder the prosperous
port city of Cambay. According to some Jain and Rajput accounts, he also overran parts
of the Kathiawad peninsula. After this attack, which was the first of two campaigns
ordered by Khalji into the region, the Delhi army returned to the capital with enormous
booty. Vaghela power was re-established until a second attack in c. 1304. See Jackson,
Delhi Sultanate, 195–96. See also, Padmanabha, .D۬KDGƗGH3UDEDQGKD, 14–15. For
-DLQDFFRXQWVHH%KOHUµ$-DLQD$FFRXQWRIWKH(QGRIWKH9DJKOHODVRI*XMDUDW¶
194–95.
38 Jackson, Delhi Sultanate.
39 'HVDLµ.KDOMƯDQG7XJKOXT,QVFULSWLRQVIURP*XMDUDW¶±
34 In Praise of Kings

The Khalji incursion into Gujarat linked the region’s fortunes closely
to those of Delhi and eventually led to the formation of the independent
sultanate of Gujarat in the fifteenth century. The Delhi sultans benefitted
from the immense vitality of the regions’ trade routes and mercantile links
that had been fostered by the previous rulers. Already successful urban
centres like Anhilvada-Patan and Cambay continued to benefit the Delhi
sultans. With Delhi’s conquest of these towns, Gujarat’s revenue far exceeded
that of other provinces; its governorship was therefore much coveted by the
courtiers of Delhi, some of whom were willing to pay significant bribes
to be appointed to Anhilvada or Cambay.40 The significance of trade for
the region was understood by the earliest governors sent to Gujarat. Alp
Khan, the governor appointed to the province soon after the 1304 attack,
is known to have adopted a generous and conciliatory attitude towards
the various trading communities in the region, including the Arabs, the
Ismailis, and the Jains. Inscriptions from Petlad and Cambay testify to his
benevolence towards Muslim merchants, but Alp Khan is also remembered
in a number of Jain accounts.41 Noteworthy are two accounts about the
Jain merchant Samara Sah, who is memorialised for the restoration of
Jain temples at Shatrunjaya. Both the accounts, the 6DPUƗUƗVX and the
1ƗEKLQDQGDQDMLQRGGKƗUDSUDEDQGKD speak of Alp Khan’s cordial relations
with the merchant and his granting of an official order or firman to restore
the Jain temples, as the great merchant had sought to do.42
The extension of territory that had begun with ‘Ala’ al-Din was gradually
replaced by direct rule under the Tughluqs who succeeded them, but the
absorption of territories brought its own administrative and militaristic
problems.43 The Tughluqs faced constant rebellions at the hands of nobles
stationed in Gujarat. Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq (r. 1325-51) in fact spent
the final three years of his rule chasing the rebel governor Taghi in Kathiawad,
or Saurashtra, and the Thar regions, where he succumbed to illness and died
in 1350. The sultan’s presence in north Gujarat and the Saurashtra peninsula
appears to have resulted in his gaining a degree of submission from the local
chieftains, who were rewarded with the customary robes of honour and other

40 Misra, The Rise of Muslim Power, 130.

41 Misra, The Rise of Muslim Power, 67.
42 The text of 6DPUƗUƗVXis published in Dalal, 3UƗFƯQD*njUMDUD.ƗY\DVDPJUDKD27–38.
For 1ƗEKLQDQGDQDMLQRGGKƗUDSUDEDQGKD, see Harakhcand.
43 Jackson, Delhi Sultanate, 255.
 Setting the Stage 35

gifts.44 A bardic account collected in the nineteenth century also speaks of

Muhammad’s conquest of the coast and the defeat of the Gohil chieftain
Mokhraji at Piram. The fact that the Gohil rulers of Bhavnagar trace their
ancestry to Mokhraji is indicative of political pliancy and suggests that, though
the chieftain was subjugated and his fortress at Piram destroyed, Gohil authority
in the locality did not come to an end.
By the start of Firuz Tuqhluq’s (r. 1351–88) rule in Delhi in 1362, Gujarat’s
governors, like the governors in other provinces of the empire, were becoming
more powerful and displaying a degree of independence decades before
Delhi’s demise in the fifteenth century. One of these was Mufarrih Sultani,
who held the title of Farhat al-Mulk Rasti Khan, and governed Gujarat from
1377 to 1391. Later writers such as Firishta view Rasti Khan’s actions as
leniency towards and complicity with the ‘Hindu’ or the infidel chieftains.45
Eventually, the governor, Zafar Khan, managed to gain control of the local
power bases, overthrow Delhi’s rule in the province, and establish himself as
an independent sultan.
While Gujarat was ruled as a province of the Delhi empire, it was also
integrated into what has been termed the ‘Persian cosmopolis’, which had its
own values of political power and cultural ideals.46 The Delhi sultans promoted
the use of the Persian language and Persianate cultural norms were established
in the parts of the subcontinent they ruled. Gujarat featured in the works of the
great poet Amir Khusrau (1253–1325), whose Persian masnavi, 'XYDO5ƗQL
YD.KLܲU.KƗQ, was commissioned by the Khalji prince Khizr Khan. This is
a historical romantic tale of the love between Khizr Khan and Duval Rani,
the daughter of the Gujarat king Raja Karandeva Vaghela. The princess, it
is believed, was captured along with her mother during Khalji’s conquest of
Gujarat. Khusrau’s Khaza’in al Futuh, composed around 1311–1312 to praise
Khalji’s victories throughout India, and Ziya’ al-Din Barani’s 7D¶UƯNKL)LUnj]
6KƗKƯ form important sources for the history of Delhi’s connections to province
of Gujarat during the sultanate period.47 While the new sultans of Delhi were of
Turkish origin, they were steeped in Persian culture. The Indo-Persian culture,
that drew on the Ghurid and Ghaznavid tradition of patronage of scholars and

44 Misra, Rise of Muslim Power, 116–23.

45 Firishta, History of the Rise of Mahomedan Power, Vol. 4, 2.
46 Eaton and Wagoner, Power, Memory, Architecture, 21–27.
47 For an English translation of 'XYDO5ƗQLYD.KLܲU.KƗQ see Losensky and Sharma, In
the Bazaar of Love, 117–30.
36 In Praise of Kings

poets, was founded as early as the eleventh century in Ghaznavid Punjab and
its surrounding area.48 As the Delhi sultanate grew more stable and confident
in its rule during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this culture matured.
At this time, Persianised Turkish dynasties were supreme in other parts of the
Islamic world as well. The successive dynasties of the Delhi sultans, being in
constant contact with Iran and Central Asia, patronised the development of
a local Persian culture.49 This inaugurated a long period of Persian historical
writing that was to continue into the nineteenth century. The efflorescence and
spread of the various Sufi orders during this period also played an important
role in facilitating the development and circulation of Indo-Persian culture in
Delhi and throughout the subcontinent.50
Delhi’s imperial rulers did embark on a focused patronage of Persian and
Persianate culture in the region, but a number of older traditions also continued
to exist during this period. The end of the Chaulukya–Vaghela rule meant that
patronage to large-scale temples, and consequently Brahmin and Jain scholars
who composed works in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and Apabhramsha, was no longer
available. This phenomenon has conventionally been viewed in terms of a
simple binary clash between Hindu and Muslim rulers in which the latter
replaced the older traditions entirely with Islamic ones. A closer examination
of the overall patronage landscape in Gujarat during the brief hundred years
as a Delhi Sultanate province, however, provides a more complex picture.
Public inscriptions – which, as we have seen, were an important form of
writing that communicated state ideology as well-formed visible records for
administrative and legal purposes – acknowledged the presence of Khalji and
Tughluq sultans and governors located in Patan, Cambay, Dholka, and other
sites across the region.51 While Persian was used for writing inscriptions
during the Chaulukya–Vaghela reign only in rare instances, from this period
onwards, Gujarat witnessed a greater production of inscriptions in the
language. This was as expected, but Sanskrit inscriptions recording grants
of land or donations by a variety of social groups were found all over the
region even after the sultanate gained power. Some of the inscriptions from

48 Alam et al. 7KH 0DNLQJ RI ,QGR3HUVLDQ &XOWXUH, 24. The Delhi sultans patronised
political theorists like Ziya’ al-Din Barani (d. 1357) as well as poets like Amir Khusrau
(d. 1325) and Hasan Sijzi Delhlavi (1254–1328).
49 Alam et al. 7KH0DNLQJRI,QGR3HUVLDQ&XOWXUH 24.
50 Digby, ‘Before Timur Came,’ 298–356; Eaton, The Rise of Islam on the Bengal Frontier.
51 )RU VRPH HDUO\ LQVFULSWLRQV RI WKH 'HOKL VXOWDQV VHH 'HVDL µ.KDOMƯ DQG 7XJKOXT
Inscriptions from Gujarat,’ 1–40.
 Setting the Stage 37

this period were bilingual – in Persian and Sanskrit – a tradition that further
proliferated in Gujarat during the Muzaffarid rule in the fifteenth century on
a variety of public buildings.52
The patronage of Islamic structures in Gujarat displays a similarly complex
history. The sultans of Delhi were Muslims, and the Khalji annexation did lead
to the construction of new religious sites commissioned by officials appointed
to Gujarat. Many older temple structures which were now ‘dilapidated and
deliberately dismantled’ were repurposed to provide foundations for new
sites.53 For example, the Jami mosques at Bharuch and Cambay, built during
Tughluq reign, are known to have been erected in place of Hindu temples
reusing the temples’ very stones. However, Gujarat was also home to diverse
Muslim communities that had settled in the region several hundred years prior.
The mosque, as an architectural feature and place of worship, was thus not
unfamiliar to its inhabitants at the time of the Khalji conquest. In fact, before
and after the Khalji annexation, many important buildings in urban centres
were built by wealthy merchants. There appears therefore to have been, as Alka
Patel suggests, ‘a delicate play and balance of power between the state and its
representatives on the one hand, and on the other the economic sustenance of
the region as vested in these astute merchants.’54 The architecture of Gujarat
from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries shows that during the fourteenth
century, when Gujarat was a province of Delhi, there was a sudden explosion
in architectural scale indicating that ‘prosperous merchant-magnates vied for
Khalji- and Tughlaq-deputed governors for political recognition in the eyes of
the Delhi overlords.’55 Thus, the support for Islamic structures was not entirely
driven by a unified agenda of religious and political propaganda by the new
government, but rather appears to have been driven more by the local economic
and social contingencies. With the settlement of greater Muslim populations
in the region, Sufis and holy men, as well as scholars, were drawn to the cities
of Gujarat, a tradition of migration that would continue on a larger scale in
the following century.56

52 For a detailed analysis of bilingual inscriptions from fifteenth-century Gujarat, see

Sheikh, ‘Languages of Public Piety,’ 189–209.
53 Patel, ‘From Province to Sultanate,’ 72.
54 Patel, ‘From Province to Sultanate,’ 72.
55 Patel, ‘From Province to Sultanate,’ 72–73.
56 Jyoti Gulati Balachandran has shown that during the Muzaffarid Sultanate of Gujarat a
regional community of learned men, including religious scholars, teachers, and spiritual
masters, emerged on the central plains of eastern Gujarat. The migration and settlement
38 In Praise of Kings

Another aspect of the conquest of Gujarat by the rulers of Delhi in 1304

was the end of the Chaulukyas’ and the Vaghelas’ patronage of Jain cultural
traditions. However, Shvetambara Jains, who had been growing in prominence
in the region from the tenth century onwards, continued their literary
productions in abundance even after the defeat of the Vaghelas. Jain narratives
like the aforementioned 6DPUƗUƗVX and 1ƗEKLQDQGDQDMLQRGGKƗUDSUDEDQGKD
speak of the generosity with which the new sultanate governors treated Jains.
As traders and bankers, Jains interacted closely with the state. The continuation
of Jain literary production is noteworthy, as it disproves the popularly held
notion that Jainism (as well as other non-Muslim sects) saw a decline under
the Muslim sultans of Delhi, particularly after their conquest of Gujarat. The
changing political circumstances affected the concern that Jain intellectuals
expressed through their literary output.57 As the life of Jain monk and scholar
Jinaprabhasuri (c. 1261–1333), the leader of a branch of the Kharatara Gaccha,
and his most famous work, the 9LYLGKDWƯUWKDNDOSD, or ‘description of various
holy places’, show, the Jains adapted to the new dispensation in an attempt to
make the community accessible to the courtly world of the sultanate. Rather
than becoming inward-looking, as the dominant scholarship has suggested,
works like 9LYLGKDWƯUWKDNDOSD suggest that the Jains took a pragmatic approach
in order to preserve their community’s privileges in the light of new challenges.
The Jain merchant groups continued to hold prominent positions under the
regional sultanate and subsequently in the Mughal court.58

Local Polities
New political and cultural elements were introduced into Gujarat with the end
of the Chaulukya–Vaghela rule and the establishment of Gujarat as a province
of the Delhi empire in the fourteenth century. Delhi’s authority in the region
was maintained through governors from outside the province, representatives
of the state who grew stronger as the distant central control weakened. The

of these men into the region gave rise to the production of Persian and Arabic texts as
well as the construction of tomb shrines commissioned by the sultans. See Balachandran,
‘Texts, Tombs and Memory.’
57 Vose, ‘The Making of a Medieval Jain Monk,’ 26.
58 Audrey Truschke has recently shown how Sanskrit and Persian traditions interacted
in the Mughal court where Brahmin and Jain scholars participated in a vibrant,
multilingual, and multicultural intellectual environment. See Truschke, Culture of
Encounters.
 Setting the Stage 39

governors stationed in Gujarat were quick to grasp the value of its thriving trade,
as well as the significance of its local nodes of power, as we have seen in the
case of the ambitious governor Farhat al-mulk. As the direct influence of Delhi
began to diminish towards the end of the fourteenth century, it was these two
major resources, trade and the local chieftains, that governors would harness
in order to strengthen their control over the region. While new elements were
introduced into the realm of culture as well, pre-existing traditions continued
to flourish and were reconfigured in the light of the changing realities.
These local chieftains that the Delhi sultanate governors had to contend
with were part of the complex sub-regional elaboration that had emerged
in the wake of Chaulukya decline. Kachchh and Saurashtra had been home
to pastoralists and semi-pastoralist groups for centuries, and during the
Chaulukya rule a number of such militarised clans of obscure origins moved
into different parts of Gujarat. By the twelfth century, many of these groups
had obtained land from the Chaulukya rulers and established strongholds
in the areas they had acquired in return for military service. These men,
who came to control strategically significant nodes of power and resources,
existed in the interstices of a large empire. They did not always leave behind
elaborate historical records, but their presence can be discerned from
numerous inscriptions, memorial stones, and oral narratives, along with the
small body of literary works to which they extended patronage despite their
limited territorial and economic resources.
The settlement of these men coincided with ongoing processes of state
formation at the regional and local levels. But socially, it also coincided with
the process of ‘Rajputisation’ whereby they aspired to rearticulate their social
status and find a place of prestige for themselves within the wider varna social
hierarchies. These chieftains also made grants to Brahmins, as is recorded
in numerous Sanskrit inscriptions, and commissioned genealogies linking
themselves to more exalted pasts. The chieftains and their lineages formed the
political substratum of the region from the thirteenth century onwards. As they
became more powerful in their local patrimonies, often located on important
trade routes, they laid claim to the region’s resources. In the wake of their
political ascendency, the Delhi sultans, and more significantly, the regional
sultans, were forced to negotiate and counter these groups in order to create a
stable rule. These groups, many of whom came to be known as Rajputs, had
a lasting impact on the region over the centuries that followed, even after the
fall of the regional Muzzaffarid sultanate, and came to form the fundamental
political fabric of the region until the end of the colonial rule.
40 In Praise of Kings

These lineages in Gujarat did not use the term ‘Rajput’ to describe
themselves until the sixteenth century, but instead used the word garasiya or
‘landowner’. This word could refer to landowners of various levels, including
small zamindars and chieftains of hill fortresses, or chieftains who belonged to
prestigious lineages. However, it was during this period, between the twelfth
and the fifteenth centuries, that these groups were establishing networks and
alliances that would eventually facilitate their claims to Rajput status at a later
date.59 Some of these chieftains, such as the Gohils in Saurasthra, Rathods of
Idar or the Chauhans of Champaner, claimed relations with older, prestigious
clans of Rajasthan; others, such as the Chudasamas of Junagadh or Jhalas and
Jethvas, had migrated from Sindh and the northwest, and still others, like the
Bhils and Kolis, already lived in the hills and forests spread across the region.
The dismantling of the Vaghela kingdom at the hands of the Delhi armies in
c. 1298 created a political vacuum whereby further movement into the eastern
and central territories up to the coast became possible. Despite the fact that
the Delhi sultan captured Asaval, Anhilvada–Patan, Somanatha, Vanthali,
and Cambay, migrations continued, with settlements being established around
these core areas. Even before the Vaghelas were overthrown, their power in
the region had begun to wane and the pastoralist warrior groups, many of
whom had been their former vassals, were able to occupy territories around
the heartland. The Rathods established themselves at Idar, a short distance
away from Anhilvada, after Arjundeva Vaghela’s reign (1267–80). The
Chudasama and Jhalas chieftaincies of Saurashtra were also nearly equal in
strength and stature to the Vaghelas. In the early fourteenth century, central
and eastern Gujarat became prime territory for migrant bands in search of
patronage, alliance, or marriage.60 The Jhalas, the Gohils, and the Rathods all
rushed to grab territories in this region.61 The fortifications at the eastern hill
of Champaner, strategically located between Malwa and Gujarat, also arose
during this time.
The Delhi sultans had to continuously negotiate with these forces as well
as other migrant groups, including Afghans. The governors from Delhi had to
control and keep an upper hand over local elements, and often made alliances
with them in order to do so. The Muzaffarid sultans who followed in the wake
of Delhi’s decline in the region had to constantly work to control these players.
It was only during the reign of Sultan Mahmud Begada (r. 1459–1511), the fifth

59 Shiekh, Forging a Region, 67–70.

60 Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy, 71–85.
61 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 69.
 Setting the Stage 41

ruler of the dynasty to come to the throne that administrative and militaristic
measures ensured that these groups would be incorporated into the regional
empire. The patrilinies established between the twelfth and the fifteenth
centuries were resilient entities – they outlasted the regional rulers, as well as
the Mughals and the Marathas that followed, and went on to be constituted as
Native or Princely States by the British. On the eve of independence, Gujarat
was home to over two hundred such states, many of whom traced their descent
to the groups that had acquired political ascendency during this period.

Conclusion
In sum, the political processes that began with the Chaulukyas had an impact
on the longer history of Gujarat, setting the stage for the full-fledged regional
configurations that would emerge in the fifteenth century. The expansionist
programme the Chaulukyas embarked on resulted in an extension of agricultural
and urban settlements in new areas in the north and northeastern parts of the
region surrounding their capital Anhilvada–Patan. This area became the base
from which the later rulers, the Delhi sultans, the regional Muzaffarid sultans,
and the Mughals would control the region. In their ideological inclinations,
the Chaulukyas and their successors, the Vaghelas, participated in the
Sanskrit cosmopolis that had emerged all over the subcontinent, claiming
links to Puranic deities in their vast temple building projects and inscriptional
records. Poets and scribes further fostered patrons’ kingly identities through
the vast array of literary works that the Chaulukyas and Vaghelas patronised
during their rule. In addition to supporting the Brahminical Shaiva faith, the
Chaulukya kings, such as Kumarapala, and more so the Vaghela rulers, were
also closely associated with Jainism, which extremely popular in the region as
manufacture and trade rapidly flourished. The growing trade also led to the
settlement and success of a number of local and transregional Muslim trading
communities. The end result was the formation of a diverse social fabric that
would develop even more complex layers in the subsequent centuries.
While the Delhi sultanate introduced a new ideology and language of
kingship into the region, many of the elements of the older Sanskritic order
were not destroyed. Support to large-scale temples ceased, but some aspects of
the courtly society that the Chaulukyas and Vaghelas had developed persisted.
Sanskrit inscriptional practices made headway through patronage from the
emerging local power holders, including the Rajput chieftains and merchants
all over the region. Similarly, the Jains continued to prosper as traders, scholars,
42 In Praise of Kings

and men of religion and remained closely associated with the state. In the
aftermath of the Chaulukya–Vaghela rule, the Delhi governors also had to
contend with the local political elements, primarily the Rajput chieftains. It
was in the courts of these chieftains that new and significant forms of courtly
patronage would take shape in the fifteenth century, albeit on a smaller scale.
The end of the Indic polity of the Chaulukya–Vaghelas and the decline of
the Indo-Persian empire of Delhi resulted in the convergence of local processes
and the subcontinental ones in Gujarat. A wide range of small and large local
power bases was established as the Delhi governors grew more powerful. In
1407, when Zafar Khan, the last governor sent to Gujarat by the Delhi sultan,
declared himself the independent ruler of the region, the Delhi empire had
already been reduced to a small area around the city for a few years. The stage
was set for a new configurations of power and patronage in Gujarat.
 Setting the Stage 43

Map 3: Locations of historic places mentioned in the book within the modern state of
Gujarat.
‡ $KPDGDEDG PRGHUQ Ahmedabad): Gujarat sultanate capital, founded by Ahmad Shah
c. 1411.
‡ ,GDU+LOOIRUWFRQWUROOHGE\5DWKRGV
‡ -XQDJDGK&KXGDVDPDNLQJGRPFRQTXHUHGE\6XOWDQ0DKPXG%HJDGDLQ
‡ &KDPSDQHU&KDXKDQNLQJGRPFRQTXHUHGE\6XOWDQ0DKPXG%HJDGDLQ
‡ $QKLOYDGD3DWDQ $OVR NQRZQ DV 1DKDUZDOD &KDXOXN\D9DJKHOD FDSLWDO ODWHU
headquarters of Delhi sultanate and Gujarat sultanate until c. 1411.
Source: Esri; GADM database of Global Administrative Areas.
44 In Praise of Kings

5D۬PDOODFKDQGD
A Warrior Imagined

In 1394, Zafar Khan, the new governor appointed by the Delhi sultan to the
province of Gujarat, launched an attack on the hill fort of Idar. Idar was located
on the periphery of the province, northeast of Anhilvada–Patan or Naharwala,
the headquarters of the Tughluq sultans of Delhi in Gujarat. Ranmal, the ruler
of the fort and its surrounding area, had challenged the new governor’s claims
to authority, and refused to pay the customary tribute owed to the representative
from Delhi. Only a few years before this attack, in 1391, Sultan Nasir al-Din
Muhammad Shah III of Delhi (r. 1390–1393) had appointed Zafar Khan, the
son of Wajih al-mulk, a respected nobleman of the court, to quell a rebellion
that was brewing in the capital at Anhilvada–Patan. Farhat al-mulk Rasti Khan
(c. 1376–1392) was the governor of the province at that time, and had been
appointed by Muhammad’s predecessor, Sultan Firuz Tughluq. Rasti Khan
governed the province successfully, and his hold over it increased due to the
control he had over the local chieftains. Some sultanate sources go so far as
to suggest that he gained the loyalty and support of these men, who held small
but successful power bases all over the region.
After the death of his overlord, Firuz Shah, Rasti Khan gradually began to
assert his independence over the province with support from the local chieftains.
Seventeenth-century historian of Gujarat, Sikandar Manjhu, notes that Rasti
Khan became rebellious; he also describes how the Delhi sultanate nobles
stationed in the province complained of the tyranny of his administration.1

1 Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, trans., 5. Sikandar Muhammad (also Sikandar Manjhu

Gujarati) was the son of an official who served the Mughal emperor, Humayun, as
a librarian. His father accompanied the emperor in his campaign against Gujarat in
the latter half of the sixteenth century and continued to live there after his master’s
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 45

Following Manjhu, Muhammad Qasim Firishta goes further in saying that the
governor had joined forces with the ‘infidel’ chieftains and even promoted idol
worship.2 While this may have been a later attempt to tarnish his reputation,
both these sources imply that the governor was displaying signs of dissent
and was emboldened by local support outside of the imperial administration.
His rise in the region thus posed a threat to the authority of Delhi as well as to
the local Muslim nobles. Consequently, the next reigning sultan, Nasir al-Din
Mahmud Shah (r. 1394–1413), decided to send another powerful man from the
centre, Zafar Khan, to put an end to Rasti Khan’s insubordination and revive
Delhi’s fortunes in Gujarat.
After failed negotiations, in which Zafar Khan offered to mediate with the
sultan on Rasti Khan’s behalf, a battle ensued between the two men’s forces
near Patan. Zafar Khan overpowered Rasti Khan and his allies, and founded a
town named Jitpur (city of victory) at the site of his triumph.3 He took over as
the governor of Gujarat, with its capital in Anhilvada–Patan. Yet Zafar Khan’s
task was far from complete. In order to maintain hold over the region, he had
to bring the areas surrounding the capital under his control. His governorship
was challenged, right from the start, by local chieftains such as Ranmal of
Idar and Rai Bhara of Junagadh, who refused to accept his authority or pay
tribute.4 Ranmal and others like him were the very chieftains Rasti Khan
had allied with in order to govern the province successfully. It was only after
these men had been subjugated, and their claims over the land they controlled
renegotiated, that Zafar Khan and his successors consolidated their rule as
independent sultans of Gujarat.
As a new imperial political dispensation was being established in the early
decades of the fifteenth century, tendencies for resistance evolved among
local warrior chieftains who held sway over hinterland regions such as Idar.
These ideas of resistance were articulated and celebrated in narratives that

departure. Very little is known about the life of Sikandar, whose account of the history
of the region, written very soon after the fall of the Muzaffarshahi sultans in 1572,
UHPDLQVDQLQYDOXDEOHVRXUFH6HH'HVDLµ0LU¶DWL6LNDQGDUƯDVD6RXUFH¶±
2 Firishta, History of the Rise of Mahomedan Power, Vol.4, 1.
3 Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯtrans., 5–6.
4 Sikandar notes that soon after Zafar Khan had subjugated Idar, the chieftain of
the Junagadh or Jahrand in Saurashtra, Rai Bhara, rose in rebellion. Zafar Khan
overpowered him and marched against the Somanatha temple that was also located on
the peninsula. See Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ trans., 5–6. Also, Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL
6LNDQGDUƯ, Hindi trans., 11.
46 In Praise of Kings

were often composed for, and at the behest of, these local rulers. The case
study here concerns the encounters between the last governor of the Delhi
sultanate, Zafar Khan, and the above-mentioned chieftain, Ranmal of Idar.
The action revolves around a literary work titled 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, a poem in
praise of Ranmal’s martial deeds.5 It is the story of Idar’s Rathod chieftain, who
controlled the region during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries,
and his encounter with the Delhi governor, Zafar Khan, who would later
declare himself Muzaffar Shah, the sultan of Gujarat. Composed primarily in
the tradition of Dimgal virakavya, or heroic poetry, by a Brahmin poet named
Sridhara Vyasa, the text is in Old Gujarati but prefaced by verses in Sanskrit
and interspersed with Persianised words.6 It is one of the earliest available
narratives to speak of how established local power structures were disrupted
and displaced in the wake of Delhi’s dwindling fortunes and following
the rise of a new imperial authority in the region. The Rathod chieftain’s
encounter with Zafar Khan encapsulates the processes through which the
chieftains negotiated their own positions YLVjYLV the new power. Through
5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, it is possible to discern how these transformations were
perceived, articulated, and reformulated by the chieftains themselves as they
negotiated the changing political landscape and sought to establish themselves
within the world of warrior elites that was emerging all over western India.
This multilingual text also offers insight into the ways in which the varieties
of literary resources available at the time could be harnessed to enhance the
prestige of an otherwise modest chieftain.
The poet depicts the Delhi governor’s encroachment on Ranmal’s territory
and portrays his protagonist as a courageous warrior hero who thwarts
every attempt by the sultanate forces to capture his kingdom. To do so the
poet prefaces his poem with Sanskrit verses that draw on elements from the
classical cosmopolitan literary tradition to conjure an image of a typical
Kshatriya king. These include comparisons to Puranic deities as well as praise
of Ranmal’s cultural achievements and generosity. However, these elements
are closely interwoven with the vernacular and oral literary traditions that
speak of a warrior identity of the kind that Dirk Kolff has discussed.7 This

5 Sridhara Vyasa, 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 145–71. Henceforth 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD. The numerals

that follow indicate the verse numbers of the poem. Also, see Gahlot, 5Ɨ5D۬PDOOD&KDQGD.
6 The language used in the poem is sometimes also referred to as Old Gujarati or Old
Western Rajasthani. For details on the grammar and connections with Gujarati and
Marwari, see Tessitori, ‘Notes on the Grammar of Old Western Rajasthani,’ 1–106.
7 Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 47

identity was an open-ended one and allowed for the inclusion of fighting
men of varying origins. In Sridhara Vyasa’s composition, we see an eclectic
assembly of elements from different cultural and linguistic traditions of
the times and the existence of an intricate dialogue between them. In what
follows, I argue that this multiplicity is reflective of the emergent ideas of
kingship, authority, and heroism in the local kingdoms of Gujarat in the
early fifteenth century.
In the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, the already-distant power
of Delhi was crumbling in Gujarat. Rasti Khan, it will be recalled, had been
undermining Delhi’s authority, whether by tyrannising the population or by
exhibiting leniency towards local chieftains – the ‘infidels’ – an infraction
the Mughal-era historian Firishta accuses him of. These changes coincided
with a period in which groups of obscure origins were establishing themselves
politically and socially in the region; many of these, like the Rathods, had
migrated from the north and northwest under the Chaulukyas during the tenth
and eleventh centuries. In a narrative such as the 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, we see
the early local manifestations of what was to emerge as a pan-Indian warrior
identity in the form of the category of ‘Rajput’. This amalgam of an identity was
the result of a gradual diffusion of the ideas that developed at the regional and
local levels as chieftains and mercenary warriors negotiated their own social
and political positions in relation to the new regional sultanates.

A Dialogue between Literary Traditions

5D۬PDOODFKDQGD is the tale of the eponymous Rathod chieftain Ranmal and
his encounter with Zafar Khan, the governor of Anhilvada–Patan, between
1391 and 1403. Sridhara Vyasa’s account of the encounters between the
two adversaries begins with ten invocatory verses in Sanskrit. These act as
something of a preface in which the poet introduces the subject of his work:

Having bowed down to Shankara, the lord of the JD۬DV, I begin this fascinating
chanda,
I will narrate the exploits of Ranmal, the mighty rival of the yavana king [the
Delhi sultan].8

8 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 1.
48 In Praise of Kings

After the initial invocation in Sanskrit, the tale begins, forcefully and in the
Dimgal style, with the information that the commander of an army of seventeen
thousand soldiers has sent a message to the sultan. This dispatch informs him
that Ranmal, the unparalleled hindu, has captured all the grain that had been
collected as revenue by the sultanate forces.9 Further, we are told:

Inordinately fond of battle, Ranmal does not accept the orders and authority
of the Sultan,
Just as the brave Hammira, the Rathod (kamadhajja) twirls his moustache
[in defiance].10

The Sultan responds by ordering his vast army to launch an attack on the
defiant chieftain. Most of the tale that follows is about the nature of the battle
that ensues – dramatic scenes in which war drums and trumpets resound as
the armies move forward. The poet also describes the equipment used and the
destruction brought upon the respective armies. The sultanate commander,
however, makes one more attempt to frighten the rebellious Ranmal into
surrender. Still, Ranmal refuses to comply. The narrative then goes on to
describe the armies and elaborate battle scenes. After the gory deaths of
hosts of yavanas, a word referring to the men from the sultanate forces, the
battle finally ends in Ranmal’s victory. Interestingly, not too many men from
Ranmal’s army appear to have been injured.
In 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, its Brahmin poet displays his knowledge of classical
Sanskrit with the opening verse but composes the bulk of his work in the oral
tradition of Dimgal virakavya, the heroic poetry that was gaining popularity
and prestige in western India among warrior clans. This was a style developed
and popularised by the communities of Bhats and Charans who served as
genealogists, poets, and preservers of history for these clans throughout the
medieval period and right up to the nineteenth century.11 However, not much is
known about the poet Sridhara Vyasa himself. He is associated with two other
works concerned with Puranic themes, but does not say much about himself

9 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 11.
10 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 12. This motif occurs repeatedly in the narrative. Ranmal as well
as his adversaries twirl their moustaches on several occasions to assert their defiance
and arrogance. See Ranmallachanda, 19, 20, 54, 60, and 64.
11 Some Gujarati literary scholars link the chanda genre, a metrical style, to JXUMDUD
apabhramsa literature, which they view as the precursor to the charani dimgal. See
6KDVWULµ5ƗVDQH3KƗJX6ƗKLW\D¶±
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 49

within these narratives.12 The only known manuscript of the 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD

is preserved in the form of a pothi along with two other texts, one of which
is Padmanabha’s .Ɨnhadade Prabandha, ‘biography of Kanhadade’, a well-
known narrative about a similar warrior chieftain, Chauhan Kanhadade, from
another modest hill fort in southern Rajasthan.13 The pairing of the narratives
may suggest that Ranmal’s story was read along with other tales of the heroic
warrior traditions of the Rajputs. However, the alliterative and onomatopoeic
language of the oral Dimgal tradition it is composed in also indicates that it
was most likely also meant for oral recitation.
The Sanskrit preface to Sridhar Vyasa’s composition is short: ten verses
compared to the seventy-verse Dimgal portion. Yet, its presence is not arbitrary.
As we shall see later in this chapter, these verses link the chieftain of the
modest fort of Idar to the universal Indic ideas of kingship, including claims
over the protection of the entire earth, great charitable acts, and the cultural
and scholarly pursuits that brought such kings fame. In the post-Chaulukya era,
large-scale support of Sanskrit as the language of political power was reduced.
However, as noted in the previous chapter, Sanskrit continued to be used in the
inscriptions sponsored by aspiring local warlords, merchants, and some elite
women to record grants or donations. Similarly, the mercantile communities
of Jains maintained their support of Sanskrit and Apabhramsha works.
This was also the period in which early forms of Gujarati were being used
in literary works outside of the courtly milieu. Sanskrit was one of the many
possible options Sridhara Vyasa could have deployed; he also could have
omitted it entirely as the Charani battle narrative tradition would have held
equal, or even more, import in the projection of Ranmal’s martial persona
and growing status. It is possible then that the poet’s use of Sanskrit added
distinctive prestige and would contribute to the protagonist and eventually his
clan’s elite aspirations. The poet’s innovation lies not only in the juxtaposition of
the two languages itself, but also in the ways in which he is able to modify the
Sanskrit eulogy to include the protagonist’s specific contextual contingencies:
Ranmal is the destroyer of the great paramount kings (just as he is of the
yavanas), but he is not supported by a prestigious lineage, nor does he perform
material or financial acts of charity, but rather builds the tombs of his enemies.
Ranmal, as the holder of a modest fort, may have lacked an elaborate court or

12 These are entitled ƮĞZDUƯFKD۪GDand %KƗJDYDW'DĞDPDVND۪GD. See Jani in Paniker,

Medieval Indian Literature, 48, and Joshi et al., *XMDUDWƯ6ƗKLW\DQR,WLKƗV, 216.
13 Sridhara Vyasa, 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, MS no. 1541 of 1891-95. Bhadarkar Oriental Research
Institute, Pune.
50 In Praise of Kings

resources for large-scale munificence but he did, according to his panegyrist,

have all the trappings of a brave warrior.
In the rest of the Ra۬mallachanda, Sridhara Vyasa presents a narrative more
akin to the oral traditions associated with the heroic ethos specific to western
India and makes frequent use of alliterations, which lend his text performative
character. These forms lend themselves to recitation with considerable dramatic
force. Thus, a typical verse in the text reads:

GDPDGDPNƗr damƗPDGDPDNNƯ\D,‫ڲ‬KDP‫ڲ‬ham ‫ڲ‬KDP‫ڲ‬ham ‫ڲ‬KRO‫ڲ‬KDPDNƯ\D,

WDUDYDUWDUDYDUYHVDSDKD‫ܒܒ‬L\D,WDUDWDUDWXUDNSD‫ڲ‬LLWDODKD‫ܒܒ‬Ư\D.14

It is nearly impossible to replicate these alliterations in an English translation,

and the onomatopoeic representations of drums and battle sounds, which
contribute so strongly to the drama, cannot be reproduced in English. The
translation can only go as far as:

The drums beat loudly, the ‫ڲ‬KROVresound noisily (‫ڲ‬KDP‫ڲ‬ham ‫ڲ‬KDP‫ڲ‬KDP),

Rapidly (taravara taravara) changing their garbs, the turak [Turks] fall in
position at the base of the hill.

The alliterative style thus reveals an aural character reflecting the greater
tradition of Rajput oral narrative in which poets composed works before battles.
With their staccato alliterations, such verses, it is said, reproduced the sounds
and moods of war, preparing and energising audiences of Rajput warriors for
battle, and inspiring unwavering death wishes in their hearts.15
At certain points in the narrative the poet also alters familiar words to
make them resonate with the mood of the scene. When read aloud, the
5D۬mallachanda conjures an image of the dusty and noisy battlefield of Idar
hill. The language is also freely interspersed with vernacularised forms of
Persian and Arabic words. These include, among others, words such as banda,
barjara (bazaar), firman, foja (fauj, army), halal, haram, khan, mal, mir, mallik,
suratrahana (also suratran, or sultan) and a variety of ethnonyms. The detailed
descriptions of the confrontation, including names of specific generals, the
variety of ethnic groups in the Muslim army, as well as other activities, such
as the collective act of praying or namaj just before going into battle, also mark

14 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 47. For a comprehensive discussion on Dimgal prosody, see

Kamphorst, ‘Rajasthani Battle Language,’ 33–39.
15 Kamphorst, ‘Rajasthani Battle Language,’ 47.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 51

it as an early example of the literary tradition of compositions in Old Gujarati

that deal with similar themes. For instance, the aforementioned .Ɨnha‫ڲ‬ade
Prabandha by the Nagar Brahmin poet Padmanabha, composed somewhat
later than the 5D۬mallachanda, c. 1455, is the story of a Chauhan chieftain’s
encounter with ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji in Jalor while the latter was on his way
to conquer Gujarat. Much longer than the 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, the .Ɨnha‫ڲ‬ade
Prabandha displays a similar affinity for Persianised words and intricate detail,
including lists of weapons of war, types of horses, names of specific people,
and even descriptions of the food that they ate.16
The story of Ranmal was popular in the oral traditions in Gujarat, as
well. Similarly, Ranmal appears repeatedly in other historical sources from
the period. One possible implication of the lack of written circulation is the
popularity of the tale in the oral traditions. In the early decades of the fifteenth
century, men like Ranmal were still struggling to maintain their sovereignty
over the lands that they had occupied and lacked the resources for courtly
accoutrements such as the patronage of buildings or civic structures. The
relative scarcity of textual materials and buildings attributed to these emerging
chieftains can be partially explained by these economic and social constraints.
Yet the numerous memorial stones and oral narratives that even now dot the
landscape of Gujarat, Kathiawad, and Kutch bear witness to the enduring
significance of the presence of warriors like Ranmal in the region.17
The decline of the traditional Chaulukya–Vaghela kingdom (along with those
of the Paramaras of Malwa or the Yadavas of Devagiri in other parts of the
subcontinent) and the rise of the Delhi sultanate in the north from the twelfth
century onwards interrupted long-established forms of social and political
authority, which were further modified as successor sultanates attempted to
consolidate their hold over provinces including Bengal, Jaunpur, Malwa, and
Gujarat. Real political changes led to changes in the vocabulary through which
kingship and authority were articulated by the local elites in their literary
traditions, particularly during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In these
works, often written in Sanskrit or regional languages, battles between a
local chieftain and a Muslim sultan became the central theme. The sultans in
that scenario were often portrayed in exaggeratedly evil terms. The Muslim

16 See Padmanabha, .ƗQKD‫ڲ‬DGH3UDEDQGKD.

17 For a detailed description and discussion of memorial stones as an important element
of Gujarat’s warrior ethos see Swayam, ‘Sites of Ritual Construction of Identities,’
303–39.
52 In Praise of Kings

rulers, whose literary effusions in Persian also displayed a prejudice against

the ‘infidels’, felt a similar need to assert authority.18 Yet, as recent studies have
revealed, such works were not created in conscious opposition to one another
but in fact display close cultural affinities in the idioms, imagery, and tropes
they used; they reflected a shared literary and cultural tradition of exchange
and negotiation based on their contemporary political contexts.19
For the local warrior chieftains, the primary moulders of kingly ideology
in the medieval and the early modern periods were not always the Brahmins
but the various communities of Charans, traditionally the historians and
storytellers of the region. The status and position of the Charans was derived
from the fusion of both secular and religious qualities and duties: they were
considered to be deviputras, or the sons of the goddess. The Charans’ ritual
significance lay in the fact that they were mediators between the goddess and
the kings, so they played important roles in maintaining the social status and

18 The existence of such literary narratives led Aziz Ahmad to suggest that these were in
fact located in two different linguistic, religious, and historical cultures. He referred
to them as the ‘Muslim epics of conquest’ and ‘Hindu epics of resistance’. The two
kinds of literary narratives, for Ahmad, were thus completely distinctive, having
developed in ignorance of each other, and differing in their readership as the Muslim
epics were composed in Persian while their Hindu counterparts used either Sanskrit
or the vernaculars. According to Ahmad, while they did not develop in ‘conscious
opposition’ to one another, ‘one of them was rooted in the challenge of asserting the
glory of Muslim presence and the other in the repudiating it’. See Ahmad, ‘Epic and
Counter-epic in Medieval India,’ 470–76.
19 Michael Bednar’s study of the narratives, which Aziz Ahmad divided into the two
distinctive cultural categories, is one example of this recent scholarship. Bednar engages
in close readings of these narratives and studies their tropes to show how these apparently
distinctive literary traditions in fact interacted closely with one another. While the
Persian tradition, represented here by Amir Khusrau, made extensive use of Indic
imagery, the Sanskrit and vernacular traditions represented the Muslims as carriers
of an emerging Rajput identity. Bednar’s study reveals that in crossing these literary
boundaries these narratives display a ‘single social, cultural, and historical attitude that
existed in a literary and cultural symbiosis.’ See Bednar, ‘Conquest and Resistance in
Context.’ Though not arguing directly with Ahmad, other recent studies on literary
narratives from the medieval period have also suggested that the ‘epics of conquest’
and ‘epics of resistance’ were not watertight but reflected a shared literary and cultural
tradition of exchange and negotiation based on their contemporary political contexts.
Ramya Sreenivasan’s recent work on the narratives of the Rajput queen Padmini, for
instance, suggests a rich exchange between the Persian and Indic tradition but also
reveals a close interaction between other languages and genres all over the subcontinent.
See Sreenivasan, Many Lives of a Rajput Queen.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 53

legitimacy of their overlords. Charans accompanied these warriors in battles,

sang of their glory in war, and, as late as the nineteenth century, served as
guarantors and diplomats for their lieges on account of their sacred association
with various forms of the mother goddess. In many cases, they were held in
higher regard than the Brahmins, even though they were ranked lower in the
traditional varna hierarchy.
Brahmin poets were occasionally patronised by the more successful kings
at their newly emerging courts to write of their glories in Sanskrit. However,
it was the warlike ideologies of the Charans, their particular dialects, and
the fluid textures of their narratives, meant for oral recitation, that came to
shape the nature of kingship in the region. Similarly, the continuing existence
of memorial stones that can still be found, sometimes in clusters of sixty or
seventy all over Gujarat evidence a tradition of memorialising battles and
violent deaths at the popular level. Such assemblages were closely associated
with the Charans, who encouraged their patrons to die in battle but also
resorted to self-harm and suicide themselves in order to maintain their own
social and ritual positions.
In its use of Sanskrit, the oral Dimgal tradition of the Charans or bards, and
Persian register, Sridhara Vyasa’s narrative of Ranmal also reflects the poet’s
awareness of the multiple literary traditions that were prevalent in the region
and the ways in which they could be harnessed in order to produce a heroic
account of Ranmal’s resistance to Zafar Khan (later sultan Muzaffar Shah). By
using multiple languages and details of localised information, 5D۬mallachanda
features a continuous dialogue between the literary and cultural resources that
were available in the specific regional context of fifteenth-century Gujarat.
The simultaneous use of multiple resources in itself reflects the fluid nature
of a political scenario in which chieftains like Ranmal struggled to assert
authority and establish kingly identity.

Situating the Warrior Chieftain

Of Zafar Khan’s locally powerful chieftain-adversaries, Ranmal Rathod of
Idar was one of the earliest. The mountainous region of Idar is located in the
Sabarkantha district of present-day Gujarat and connects the chains of the
Vindhya and Aravalli ranges on the Gujarat’s northeastern frontier. Its ruler,
ra or raja Ranmal appears on many occasions in the chief Persian sources on
the region, namely, the 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ and the 0LU¶ƗWL$‫ۊ‬PDGƯ; he is also
documented by the Mughal-era historian Firishta, who wrote of the various
54 In Praise of Kings

Muslim dynasties in India. Persian chronicles, like the PLU¶ƗWVand Firishta’s

accounts, portray a considerably different picture of the Rathod chieftain than
the one presented by his Brahmin panegyrist. The Persian histories are often
coloured by an inclination to highlight the victory of Islam over the lands of the
‘infidels’, but, studied in conjunction with other sources from the region, they are
invaluable in revealing the imperial imagination’s perception of local chieftains.
The seventeenth-century Gujarati historian, Sikandar Manjhu, mentions
at least three encounters between Zafar Khan and the Rathod chieftain in
his 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ. The 5D۬mallachand also speaks of previous meetings
between the two. Whatever the actual number of encounters may have been, it
does seem that the hill fort of Idar, strategically positioned at the intersection
of routes leading from Gujarat to both southern Rajasthan and Malwa, was one
of the first forts to be targeted by the early sultans of the Muzaffarid dynasty.
As the controller of this crucial location, Ranmal appears to have held an
important position in the politics of region.
In 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ the raja or chieftain of Idar is depicted not only as the
very first of the chieftains to have rebelled against the new governor, but also
as one who often took advantage of the political dissensions at Anhilvada–
Patan to secure his own position. Sikandar mentions that shortly after Zafar
Khan had conquered Patan, he was given the news that the raja of Idar had
rebelled.20 An army was thus commissioned to besiege the fort, plunder its
riches, and harass its inhabitants. Finally, Ranmal accepted defeat and made
submission. After this, we are told, Zafar Khan was engaged in restraining
the rulers of Asirgardh and Burhanpur, who were transgressing the limits of
their territories and making incursions into some of the provinces that had
submitted to Gujarat.21 During this period, he also marched against Rai Bhara,
the chieftain of Jharand (or Junagadh), and, according to Sikandar, destroyed
the famous Somanatha temple.22
Again, in 1397–98, Zafar Khan besieged the fort of Idar to subdue the
‘infidels’ there.23 But, continues Sikandar, on hearing of Timur’s conquests in
the north, Zafar Khan made peace with the raja and returned to Patan. It was
when his grandson Ahmad Shah came to the throne (c. 1411) that the rulers of
Patan finally again encountered the Idar chieftain. Ahmad’s title was disputed
by his cousin Firuz Khan, who proclaimed himself king at Bharuch. Ahmad

20 Sikandar,0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, trans., 6.
21 Sikandar,0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, Hindi trans., 10
22 Sikandar,0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, Hindi trans., 11.
23 Sikandar,0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, trans., 7.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 55

Shah temporarily suppressed his cousin’s rebellion, but shortly thereafter, in

1412, Firuz Khan and his supporters joined Ranmal and took shelter at Idar
fort. The confederacy was soon besieged by Ahmad Shah. Upon realising that
the Sultan had gained the upper hand, the Rathod chieftain not only submitted
Firuz Khan’s horses and elephants to him but also plundered his former ally’s
camp. Amid the chaos, Ranmal was let off after paying a suitable tribute to
Ahmad Shah. 24
Ranmal did finally send his son to offer submission, something we learn
because he also appears a few times in Firishta’s account of Zafar Khan’s early
years in the region. In this account, too, much of which is based on Sikandar’s
narrative, Ranmal seems to alternate between making trouble and offering his
submission to the great power. Forgiveness for the lack of payment, according
to Firishta, was granted on the transmission of a large sum of money and jewels.
Like Sikandar, Firishta also mentions that around the year 1398, Zafar Khan
suspended his attack on Idar due to the arrival of Timur’s army but resumed it
later in the year. However, he adds that this was also a period in which Delhi
was in a state of confusion and many rivals were contending for the crown.25
Zafar Khan and his son Tatar Khan chose not to participate in this competition at
this time, instead concentrating on stabilising their hold over Patan. Therefore,
in 1401, Zafar Khan once again attacked Idar to levy tribute, but Ranmal
fled to Vishalnagar, leaving the fort to be occupied by the governor’s forces.
Ranmal’s alliance with Ahmad Shah’s cousin Firuz, who had promised the
Rathod chieftain independence in exchange for his help in providing men and
horses for his campaign, is documented in a rather elaborate account. Despite
being able to hold out against Ahmad’s forces by taking refuge in the hills,
Ranmal eventually abandoned his allies and submitted to the Sultan. In fact,
notes Firishta, Ranmal seized Firuz Khan’s horses, elephants, and other effects,
and sent them to the Sultan in order gain favour for himself. 26
Taken together, the Persian histories of the region provide a glimpse into just
how a chieftain such as Ranmal would have been able to participate actively in

24 Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, Hindi trans., 12–13. Later in the same account, we again
find the Idar chieftain’s son, Punja, forming a confederacy with other chieftains, namely,
Trimbakdas of Champaner and the raja of Nandod (in Rajpipla, Rewa Kantha district)
along with other rebels from Ahmad’s court, in an abortive attempt to invite Hoshang
Shah of Malwa to usurp the throne of Ahmedabad. Also see Firishta, History of the
Rise of Mahomedan Power, Vol.4, 6–21.
25 Firishta, History of the Rise of Mahomedan Power, Vol.4, 4–5.
26 Firishta, History of the Rise of Mahomedan Power, Vol.4, 9.
56 In Praise of Kings

the politics of the region. His strategic location and military resources allowed
him to form alliances with the Sultan’s adversaries in order to occasionally
assert his independence. Yet, when the alliance proved less advantageous, he
was also able to seek the imperial power’s forgiveness and maintain peace at
the cost of a temporary submission. The portrayals of the sultans’ encounters
with Idar betray the tensions and ambiguities that shaped the political landscape
at a time in which different power brokers sought to retain or gain control
over much of the region. The Muzaffarids, descendants of Zafar Khan, would
soon emerge as the most powerful of these players, and establish themselves
as independent rulers.
In the nineteenth century, the colonial officer Alexander Forbes recorded the
legend about the way in which Ranmal’s line of Rathods made incursions into
Idar. This account documents the formation of the town under Rao Sonugji, one
of Ranmal’s ancestors who belonged to a cadet line of the Rathods. According
WRWKLVQDUUDWLYH6RQXJMLKDGZUHVWHG,GDUIURPLWVW\UDQQLFDOUXOHUDµ3njreehƗU
Rajpoot’. The latter’s Brahmin minister betrayed his master and invited Sonugji
to establish his line of Rathods there. This was at the end of the Chaulukya rule
in Anhilvada, under the king Bhimadeva II, sometime in the late thirteenth
century.27 Ranmal expanded the territories of his father, Burhutji, and made
vassals of men from the Solanki and Chauhan families (presumably because
their influence was now in decline).28
Forbes also recounts Ranmal’s encounter with Muzaffar Shah, but this is
based on Firishta and 0LU¶ƗWL$‫ۊ‬PDGƯ¶Vaccounts of the same, which in turn
draw from Sikandar’s narrative, and need not be repeated here. A version
of Forbes’s oral account was recounted by the Rajasthani poet Shyamaldas
in his monumental nineteenth century history of Rajputs, 9ƯU9LQRG.29 Not
much is known about Sonugji’s immediate descendants until Ranmal, who is
remembered for his encounters with Zafar Khan. In 1924, Ranmal did find
a place among the greats of the Rathod clan in a Gujarati language history
commissioned by the State of Idar. The author of this ‘History of Idar State’
simply replicated Forbes’s version of the Ranmal story in his account of the
royal family’s ancestors.30
Writers other than his panegyrist, Sridhara Vyasa, give a sense of how men
like Ranmal may have harnessed their abilities to obey and disobey the imperial

27 Forbes, 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, 233–37.

28 Forbes, 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, 300.
29 Shyamaladas,9LU9LQRG, 994–95.
30 Joshi, Ʈ‫ڲ‬DU5ƗM\DQR,WLKƗV, 96–103.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 57

authority in order to hold on to their own sovereign rights. The common strand
that runs through these accounts, and Sridhara Vyasa’s narrative, appears to be
Ranmal’s desperate resistance to the integration of his territories into the new
imperial authority. During their reigns, the early sultans of Gujarat, Muzaffar
Shah, followed by his grandson Ahmad Shah, were constantly engaged in
bringing chieftains such as Ranmal under their control. These local power
brokers occupied strategic locations on trade routes and controlled a variety
of material and human resources, access to which would ultimately allow the
sultans to become the overlords of the region.
The Muzaffarid sultans, like other regional rulers, left behind numerous
texts, inscriptions, coins, and monuments as testimonials to their rule. Those
‘who occupied the continuum between the village headman and successful
warlord’31 may not have left behind a large official archive, but – like Ranmal,
or the chieftains of Champaner and Junagadh discussed in the next chapter –
did aspire to a position among the north Indian political elite. In such small
principalities these groups may not have had the resources to build large
structures, but they did choose to assert their status through the patronage of
poets and performers.32 In Sridhara Vyasa’s multilingual narrative, which also
displays a striking performative quality, we can see this assertion of status
through the poet’s articulation of resistance and defiance, and the evocation of
elements of the warrior ethos that was in circulation in western India during
the fifteenth century.
With the emergence of the new regional sultanates, the fifteenth century
witnessed the continuation of an ongoing socio-political process that appears
to have been at work in the subcontinent, to varying degrees, beginning in the
seventh century. This was the process through which caste formation converged
with the political processes of state formation as diverse groups came to seek
Kshatriya status and, therefore, a place in the larger varna hierarchy.33 In the
swathe of land comprising Sindh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and central India, this
process took the form of ‘Rajputisation’. Here, certain social groups came to
acquire certain common martial characteristics that can loosely be termed
as the ‘Rajput tradition’ or an ‘ideal code of conduct’. Whether it was the
mercenary warrior that Kolff has discussed at one end of the continuum, or the

31 Sreenivasan, ‘Warrior-Tales,’ 241–72.

32 Sreenivasan discusses literary patronage by similar groups in towns like Dalmau,
Sarangpur, and Chanderi in central India. Sreenivasan, ‘Warrior-Tales,’ 243.
33 Chattopadhyaya, ‘Origin of Rajputs,’ 57–88.
58 In Praise of Kings

more elite prince, this code of conduct had as its cornerstones martial values
such as valour and chivalry, loyalty to one’s clan and to one’s master, keeping
one’s word, and preference for death over dishonour.
Idealised Kshatriya kingly norms, drawn often from the older Puranic
tradition of the kind visible in the Chaulukya inscriptions, also became
integrated into this newly emerging martial tradition. In Gujarat, at the turn of
the fourteenth century, regional and imperial hierarchies were in flux, as was
the martial ethos that would shape ‘Rajput-hood’ in a somewhat later period.
In the story of Ranmal, Sridhara Vyasa draws on a number of conventional and
unconventional tropes resulting in a narrative that is something of a bricolage
of values and a social identity that may have, in this period, been undergoing
several shifts. Four aspects of representation in the 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD in
particular demonstrate the mix of elements that went into the making of this
local chieftain in early-fifteenth century Gujarat. These representations include
the display of a strong aggressive resistance to the imperial forces, descriptors
of the battle that are distinctly warlike, Ranmal’s persona as the hero of the
battle, and his foils – the forces that he fights in order to establish fame and
his superiority over the imperial power.

Resisting Authority and Imagining Domains

In its portrayal of the struggle against the sultanate forces, 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD
reflects an awareness of the region’s political history and the new authority
structure arising. Among the tensions, negotiations, and accommodations
attending that changeover was an emerging martial ethos among the chieftains.
From the Chaulukya period onward, the agrarian frontier of the entire region
of Gujarat, Saurashtra, and Kachchh had been expanding. Access to open,
cultivable lands and stable pastures allowed itinerant communities to settle
down, which also promoted state formation and the development of complex
economic relations. With agriculture becoming more common in the region,
land became a coveted resource. Similarly, in Baglan, southwest of Gujarat,
the expansion of agriculture and pastoral lands also made land an important
asset, even though a number of peripatetic communities remained.34 In
order for the economies of consumption, production, and interdependence to
flourish, the agrarian regimes turned to trade via the Indian Ocean. Access to

34 Guha, Environment and Ethnicity, 62–63.

 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 59

the area’s important ports, such as Bharuch, Cambay, and Surat, required the
maintenance of mountain and forest passes through places like Idar. If these
forested hills were an obstacle from one point of view, they were valuable as
capital from another: they could be strongholds, bases, and posts, and in their
recesses grew the timber needed for mansions and ships.35
Idar, it will be recalled, was also located on the borders of the kingdoms
of southern Rajasthan and Malwa, and lay close to the frontiers of Patan,
the headquarters of the Delhi sultans in Gujarat and, later, the capital of the
independent sultanate prior to the founding of Ahmadabad. Its position at the
intersection of a number of important trade routes likely created opportunities
for profit-making through toll collection. In the last years of the fourteenth
and early part of the fifteenth centuries, control over these resources in the
hilly area of Idar would have been important for the ambitious Delhi governor
wanting to maintain a hold over Gujarat. Like other chieftains who oversaw
similar landscapes, Ranmal would have gained prosperity and authority
through control of the hill fort. The fort, due to its location, would also have
been the currency with which he could bargain with men making claims on
the nascent kingdoms of Gujarat and Malwa.
Sridhara Vyasa’s narrative articulates this aspect of the conflict that frames
the chieftain’s resistance right from the beginning: Ranmal has captured the
grain and wealth from the Sultan’s coffers through a massive raid. Repeated
references to Ranmal’s defiance of the imperial authority form the principal
motifs in the text. The raid on the sultanate treasury is described as having
caused much mayhem in the sultanate domains. The poet notes:

In the night, Khambhat [Cambay] trembles, at dawn confusion prevails in

Dholka,
In the morning helpless cries resound in Patan, on hearing of your raid, O
Ranmal.36

For the poet, the wealth captured by the Rathod chieftain belongs rightfully
to him.

For the sultan’s commanderPƯU5ƗMƗ৆ƯRI0RGKDVDWKHZHDOWKKDVEHHQODLG

inauspicious,

35 Guha, Environment and Ethnicity, 62.

36 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 14.
60 In Praise of Kings

You, O Ranmal, are the only Kshatriya to have legitimised [literally ‘made
KDOƗO’] this treasure [that had been] submitted before the Khan.37

Ranmal, as we know, does not accept the sultan’s authority, nor does he obey
the firman, or imperial order. In response, the governor of Patan decides to
launch a mighty attack on Idar, instructing his commanders to gather elephants
and horses and ransack the fort and its surrounding territories. They set off
with elaborate militarily paraphernalia, including banners and noisy trumpets,
to besiege the rebel’s territory. Upon nearing the fort, however, the commander
decides to give the chieftain a second chance. He instructs his messenger to
climb the fortress of Idar immediately and address Ranmal thus:

Respect the Sultan’s order, immediately handover the wealth of the treasury,
Else, give up your lands JDUƗV and servants GƗV and accept the Khan’s
service with folded hands.38

It is this surrender of the garas39 or patrimonies that became the key aspect
of the struggle between the new sultans and the chieftains.
In his battle with the officials of the Delhi sultanate, Ranmal remains
steadfast in his decision to fight for his rights over his territories. He would
rather confront the enemy than offer them submission. Resting his strong arms
on his sword, Ranmal obstinately addresses the sultanate messenger with these
challenging words:

On the day that my head bends so low as to touch the feet of the mleccha [the
Sultan or sultanate forces], the sun will certainly not rise.40
As long as the sun continues to shine in the sky, the shoulders of the Rathod
(kamadhajja) will not stoop down before the enemy,
The flames of the fierce submarine fire may get pacified, yet I will not yield
even a furrow of land to the mleccha.41

He asks the messenger to remind the Khan that in the past he has won
against many other sultanate commanders and nothing would prevent him
this time, too, from destroying the seventeen-thousand-strong army sent by
him. Emboldened by his past achievements, Ranmal reiterates his defiance:

37 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 15.
38 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 28.
39 This word is derived from the Sanskrit, JUƗV or mouthful.
40 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 29.
41 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 30.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 61

Do not provoke me to a fight, O Malik, I am the annihilator of the mlecchas

in war,
When I rise to battle, even the Sultan means nothing to me.42

In the battle that follows, while the yavanas destroy the administration of
hill fort and create havoc, the chieftain slaughters several of their soldiers.43
Many lose their heads while others simply run away, leaving their belongings
behind.44 The mighty yavana warriors, who had once rushed to fight the
chieftain, now grow pale at his sight.45 The victory is finally Ranmal’s as
the Sultan’s forces accept defeat, literally ‘stuffing grass into their mouths’.46
By Sridhara Vyasa’s account, then, Ranmal retains his independence and
chooses not to accept the Khan’s service. However, the poet adds nuance to
this defiance of authority through Ranmal’s rejection of the governor’s claims
on the resources and through the imperial imagination he attributes to the
chieftain. This inventive narrative is far removed from the historical reality of
Ranmal as the controller of modest, albeit significant, hill kingdom. After he
has destroyed the sultanate forces, referred to as yavanas or mlecchas, Ranmal
appears to be contemplating the options that lie before him. In the very last
verse of the composition, he says:

Should I raid the fortress of Dhar and set it free after extracting tribute?
With a sword in hand should I destroy the enemy soldiers surrounding the
citadel?
Should I strike Bharuch with the strength of my spear and crush it with terror?
Should I capture the umbrella [sign of royalty, chatra] of the asura [Sultan]
and establish it over my own head?
Should I enter Patan at dawn and annihilate the GKDJD‫ڲ‬DV [sultanate soldiers]
there?
Ranmal, the UƗ of Idar says, should I create a single umbrella [ek catra, one
kingdom under his own ruler] under the sun? 47

For Sridhara Vyasa, his protagonist has the potential to capture the powerful
fortress of Dhar in Malwa, the prosperous port town of Bharuch, and Patan, the

42 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 34.
43 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 44.
44 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 45.
45 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 66.
46 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 69.
47 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 70.
62 In Praise of Kings

centre of Delhi’s authority in Gujarat. The poet’s Ranmal also claims he can
take over the authority (represented by the umbrella or chatra) of the Sultan
and destroy his power by killing his men. In fact, this imagined Ranmal goes
so far as to imply that he can create a united kingdom with himself as its head.
Sridhara Vyasa does not say more about any of these tantalising prospects.
We have no other accounts of Ranmal attempting to take over the lands of the
Delhi sultanate. Thus, despite his lofty claims, Ranmal remains the hero of
a local tradition and in fact a local chieftain who refrains from seeking more
extensive political control. Yet, the poem’s imagined domain leaves readers
with a sense of possibility about a significant political player who was active
and vocal in changing times.

The Imagery of Battle

One of the most striking features of 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD¶V construction of Ranmal
as a warrior hero is the evocative imagery of the battle that he fights against
the imperial army. Through the extensive use of alliterative and onomatopoeic
figures of speech, the poet recreates the sights and sounds of the confrontation
between the two adversarial forces. Sensory details punctuate the narrative,
immersing the audience in the sounds, scenery, and heroism of the battlefield:

Long banners flutter endlessly in the sky,

Kettledrums sound fearfully, the war trumpets make a fearsome sound,
The people rapidly run helter-skelter in all ten directions.
Thus proceeds theĞDND[sultanate] army against the one that shouts Shiva
Shiva.48

Similarly,

The swiftWRNKƗUDWƗra, tattƗUDhorses are harnessed,

With their saddles, they appear as birds spreading their wings in the wind.49

Apart from mention of the types of horses, the poet enumerates the types
of weaponry and protective armour.50 War elephants also repeatedly rumble
through the account. Such descriptive passages appear throughout the narrative,

48 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 21.
49 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 25.
50 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 69.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 63

but the battle scenes become especially gory as Ranmal prepares to fight the
sultan, referred to in the text as aspati, Lord of Horses (Sanskrit asvapati).
Now, the yoginis (goddesses associated with the Tantric worship of Shiva,
the destroyer and Shakti his female counterpart) rejoice in anticipation of the
soldiers dying in battle – so that they may drink the blood of the fallen:

Lakhs of yoginis circle the skies distributing the holy offering (SUDVƗG), they
produce loud shouts of victory,
They goad him [Ranmal] on [by saying], rise O brave one,
Rise with your weapons and destroy the evil mlecchas.51

Such gruesome descriptions form a crucial part of Dimgal heroic poetry,

and can be seen as a kind of war propaganda created to inspire warriors by the
Charan poets. In the chands, as Janet Kamphorst has pointed out, ‘the warrior-
role is emblematic for martial virtues’.52 From such images of blood-thirsty
goddesses and vultures we may infer the warrior’s grim intentions and even
his willingness to sacrifice himself in battle. While in Ranmal’s narrative the
hero does not meet his demise, in others, such as the extremely popular tale of
Pabuji that Kamphorst studies, such imagery also has spiritual connotations
if the protagonist dies in battle.53 The blood and bodies of the warrior heroes
who who meet their deaths in this way are regarded as sacrifices to the goddess
and her yoginis and seen as auspicious. In the case of Ranmal’s clash with the
sultanate forces, however, it is the destruction he causes to the enemies that
becomes the holy offering or prasad to the divinities.
In the Sanskrit portion of the narrative, too, Ranmal is depicted as a great
warrior. He has destroyed ‘the pride of paramount kings’ and ‘when on the
battlefield, enemies count for nothing’.54 However, while he is compared to
Rama as well as other historical warriors in this section, the spectacular battle
scenes of the Dimgal portion do not find mention here. This spectacle of the
battle along with the underlying cause for it are crucial to building Ranmal’s
heroic persona. The poet repeatedly notes that Ranmal has captured the sultan’s
wealth and that the imperial armies are making claims on his lands. Likewise,
Ranmal’s martial prowess is continuously emphasised through mention of his
ability to take on the forceful armies alone. The resounding sounds and gory

51 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 42, 43.

52 Kamphorst, ‘Rajasthani Battle Language,’ 23.
53 Kamphorst, ‘Rajasthani Battle Language,’ 23.
54 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD2 and 8.
64 In Praise of Kings

imagery underscore his martial dexterity. In the absence of an illustrious lineage

or an army as strong and powerful as the sultan’s, Ranmal, the sole defender
of his fort, must display his own prowess as a great warrior.
Furthermore, while 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD shares the features of martial epics
like that of Pabuji mentioned above, and others such as the Epic of Alha, the
similarities between these epics are limited to the oral style and inclusion
of graphic battle scenes. The elevation of local goddesses and heroes to the
status of divinities, a trope found in these other narratives, is not one shared
by 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD. The protagonists of these other martial epics have been
recognised as being part of a non-elite martial culture that lacked an anti-
imperialist perspective, unlike the classical warrior epics. In contrast to the
non-elite protagonists of other works, Ranmal does not in fact lose his life in
battle nor does he have a low-status companion. Furthermore, 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD
was composed by a Brahmin who had the knowledge of Sanskrit. It was also
preserved as a written work, implying an aristocratic setting for its production.
Thus, Ranmal’s story appears to be closer to the more classical warrior
narratives that emerged in western Indian courts among Rajput elites, indicating
the poet’s projection of Ranmal and his Rathod lineage’s upcoming status.55

The Warrior Chieftain’s Heroic Persona

Another aspect of Ranmal’s construction as a heroic figure is the manner in
which Sridhara Vyasa articulates his protagonist’s persona as a warrior; that is,
not as a single ideal, but as an eclectic montage. As if drawing strength from
the fierce fighters around him, Vyasa’s Ranmal embodies aspects of warrior
personae recognised in and around the region.
In the Sanskrit portion of 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, Sridhara Vyasa draws on
elements from older inscriptional and poetic traditions. This section portrays
Ranmal as a multifaceted Kshatriya king, not different from the universal great
kings of the past. The poet describes Ranmal, the warrior chieftain as one:

Who destroys the pride of the paramount kings, [the one who] brings warring
armies to heel,
The holder of valiant glory, that Ranmal, the supporter of the earth prospers.56

55 I draw here from Cynthia Talbot’s suggestion that early modern classical Rajput
narratives, such as 3‫܀‬WKYƯUƗMD5ƗVR shared some features of regional or local martial
epics but were meant for elite audiences. See Talbot, The Last Hindu Emperor, 141–43.
56 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 2.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 65

As a powerful Kshatriya king, he is also a well-rounded personality and a

‘builder’, though with his own style.

Some kings build sacrificial posts, others erect stepwells and wells.
Ranmal is the only one [known as] the maker of the tombs [for his adversaries].57
[He] enjoys the pleasures of dance and drama with those who have similar
interests, enjoys pleasures of passion when in the company of women,
With the heroic warriors, he revels in the joys of heroism, such is the one and
only Ranmal.58

Thus, while other kings build temples and do charitable works, Ranmal’s
achievements lie in his military ability. By implication, he earns his spiritual
merits by destroying his enemies and constructing their tombs. Yet the poet
does not forget to emphasise that Ranmal is also interested in the finer things
of a king’s life. With regards to his talents as warrior, Vyasa portrays Ranmal
as no less mighty than the great Puranic deity Rama. The poet writes:

Powerful demons were driven towards the lord of death’s (Yama) abode for
DEXGXFWLQJ6ƯWƗ
Presently, the mighty Rathod (kamadhajja) takes them there.59

The Sanskrit preface to the longer Dimgal poem is brief. It does not contain
a genealogy nor does it claim lofty titles for the protagonist who is never
referred to as anything greater than a raja, the kind of king lowest in the Indic
hierarchy of kings. Yet, these verses do not appear to be a mere attempt by
the Brahmin poet to display his skills in the cosmopolitan language. Instead,
in referring to his protagonist as a king at all, ‘the protector of the earth’,
and one who can in fact destroy other paramount kings, the poet makes
claims on the universal values of kingship that could only be availed through
Sanskrit, the language of the gods. Interestingly, Ranmal rejects the traditional
charitable acts associated with great kings and instead charts his own path to
fame through the building of tombs, indicating that he may be aware of his
enemies’ religious affilations. He has after all been cast as the ‘enemy of the
yavanas’ right from the start of the poem, a theme that continues throughout

57 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 6.
58 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 9.
59 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 3.
66 In Praise of Kings

the narrative. Another curious twist to the conventional elements of kingship,

however, comes in a verse that claims:

If it were not for Ranmal, the great opponent of the SƗWDVƗha [emperor],
The gurjara kings would have been sold in the market by the GKDJD‫ڲ‬DV
[sultanate soldiers].60

The poet does not clarify who these kings are, but it is difficult not to
wonder if this were a way in which the poet was also making claims on the
protagonist’s growing status in the region. The Sanskrit verses, like the verses
in the rest of the 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, bring together an innovative mix of tropes
to build the chieftain’s heroic personality.
As in the Sanskrit, the Dimgal portion of the poet’s account continues
the theme of the Ramayana: in slaying the enemy forces, Ranmal is in fact
recreating the events in the great epic.61 However, Sridhara Vyasa also compares
his protagonist to Rama’s rival, Ravana, who is traditionally viewed as an
asura, or demon. He notes, ‘Excited by war, resembling Ravana in his zeal
for fight, he (Ranmal) calls out (to the fleeing enemy saying) stop, stop (rahi
rahi).’62 In this unusual representation, the narrative overturns the traditional
deva–asura, or god–demon, dichotomy. It was indeed conventional to describe
the Muslim enemies as demons or asuras in the Indic literary traditions of the
time. The representation of the protagonist as Ravana, an asura in the epic
tradition, however, appears to turn the traditional rivalry on its head. Here,
the poet only seems to evoke the demon king in his aspect as a warrior hero.
Just like his opponent, Rama, Ravana, too, is a great king and fighter and not
the demonised Other; the comparison is ultimately instrumental in further
enhancing Ranmal’s glory.
Ranmal’s comparison to the Puranic divinities is also accompanied by
comparisons to the historical heroes well known in the region. According to the
poet, after Hammira, the Chauhan chieftain of Ranthambhor, who destroyed the
sultan’s (here ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji’s) armies with alacrity, Ranmal is the only hero
who can now repeat this great act.63 The Dimgal portion of the narrative draws
similarly from the pool of locally available historical resources. In the mould
of Hammira, Ranmal singlehandedly manifested the valour of the ‘thirty-six

60 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 7.
61 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 58.
62 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 59.
63 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 4.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 67

clans (chattƯVNXODKD)’ associated with Rajput status.64 His fighting technique

is also similar to that of Hammira, who, ‘dashing headlong, decapitated the
GKDJD‫ڲ‬DV, causing their heads to roll on the ground’.65 Several other references
to the achievements of this Chauhan ruler are found in the 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD,
but Hammira’s battle against ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji is not the only local memory
that the poet recalls to enhance Ranmal’s position in his fight.
Sridhara Vyasa writes also of Satal of Sambhar, a chieftain of a minor branch
of the Chauhans named sonigara, who was known to have once rescued the
idol of Lord Somanatha by attacking the ‘Ghazni demon’ (DVXUDKDJDMMD۬DYDƯ)
from all ten directions.66 He then returned the diety to his proper place. By the
fourteenth century, terms derived from the place name Ghazni were used more
generically to describe the ruler of Delhi.67 In this case, the term most likely
referred to ‘Ala’ al-Din, whose campaigns in western India had a lasting impact
on the region’s historical memory. According to the poet, Ranmal granted Satal
(or perhaps his descendants) a kingdom because he always honoured those who
fought against the Lord of Horses.68 As a ruler who was able to make such a
grant, Ranmal appears to be both a superior and a benevolent king. The act
additionally allows him to share in the prestige that was associated in medieval
western India with the Shaiva temple of Somanatha. It is also worth noting that
both Hammira and Satal belonged to the Chauhan and not the Rathod clans,
suggesting that it was not his own lineage he was drawing from but another
well-known one.
Drawing on the past is a common feature across several texts produced
in the local chieftaincies of Gujarat and Rajasthan that were dealing with
intense territorial rivalries and frequent military conflicts at this time. From
the mid-fifteenth century onwards, newer lineages consolidated power and

64 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 31. Bardic accounts generally consider thirty-six to be the total number
of ‘authentic’ Rajput clans. However, the names enumerated in different accounts vary
and the lists in many of these accounts often mention fewer than thirty-six names. See
Sharma, Rajasthan Through the Ages, 233, 444.
65 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 58.
66 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 62. The memory of sonigara Satal also forms a significant part of the
.ƗQK‫ڲ‬DGH3UDEDQGKD, where he is represented as an important aid to the protagonist
in his battle against the Sultan ‘Ala’ al-Din’s attempts at carrying away the idol of
Somanatha. See Padmanabha, .ƗQK‫ڲ‬DGH3UDEDQGKD, II, 65–98. For a detailed study
of Kanhadade narratives see Kapadia, ‘What Makes the Head Turn,’ and Sreenivasan,
‘The ‘Marriage’ of ‘Hindu’ and ‘Turak’,’ 87–108.
67 Chattopadhyaya, Representing the Other, 30.
68 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 63.
68 In Praise of Kings

established legitimacy by claiming genealogical (and thereby political) descent

from lineages whose powers had been destroyed by ‘Ala’ al-Din’s campaigns.69
The invocation of the memory of these campaigns by bards and court poets
became a convenient instrument through which a patron’s legitimacy could
be reiterated in politically uncertain times. The case of the 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD
constitutes an early instance of the local memory of Hammira and his struggle
against the Khalji ruler being linked with Ranmal’s victories, real or imagined,
against the representatives of the sultans.
Interestingly, however, Sridhara Vyasa evokes yet another, and perhaps
more recent and dramatic, event whose memory may have been prevalent at
the time. He compares his protagonist to Timur, the Mongol chieftain, who
had nearly destroyed Delhi about a hundred years prior. He notes:

Though he overpowered the Lord of Delhi with the prowess of his arms, he
did not become conceited,
In that, Ranmal, the thorn in the side of the ĞDND[the Sultan],
is equal only to the deathly Yama-like Timur.70

In bringing together all these different warrior idols and ideals, the poet
builds his protagonist’s martial personality. Ranmal draws his prestige from all
these different heroes, as he shares some elements of each of their achievements
or personas. The poet thus gestures towards universal kingly ideals, but, within
the same cosmopolitan register, also portrays Ranmal as the protector of the
gurjara or Gujarat kings, imagining a clearly regional role for him.
Despite evoking mythological and literary conventions of the time, Ranmal’s
panegyrist does not always follow the norm in representing the protagonist as a
hero. The tonal and textural divergence between the brief introductory portion
of the narrative in Sanskrit and the following Dimgal verses is considerable.
Nowhere else in the narrative do we find Ranmal engaging in the cultural and
sensual activities that are alluded to in the Sanskrit preface. He is compared to
Rama but, as we have seen, he is also portrayed as a warrior in the likeness of
Ravana and aided by little other than his own skills and strength in his fight
to protect his small territory from the enemy. Similarly, he does not have an
elaborate court or a retinue of courtiers. What we are witnessing in Sridhara
Vyasa’s representation of Ranmal as great warrior and his brave resistance

69 Sreenivasan, ‘Alauddin Khalji Remembered,’ 275–96.

70 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 5.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 69

to the Khan, then, is the convergence of several features of fifteenth-century

political and social changes at the regional level.
The brutal and vivid descriptions of war and the onomatopoeic verses create
the aural and visual sense of a fierce battle for the audience, who must imagine
the adversity that the protagonist encounters in the course of preventing
his lands and honour from being taken away from him. Rather than being
defined by his achievements as a patron or administrator, Ranmal as a ruler
is lauded for his prowess in battle. His lineage thus need not be from a pure
bloodline of Kshatriya rulers but can draw its inheritance from Puranic and
local heroes alike, including figures such as Ravana who are conventionally
associated with evil forces. His duty as Kshatriya or vira (brave warrior) lies
in singlehandedly protecting his territories by not succumbing to the enemy
forces. Yet, in the end, as he contemplates his options, he holds back from
actually executing a confrontation with the Delhi sultanate governor outside
of his own patrimonies. What we learn in the Persian sources, albeit those
of a somewhat later period, is that the tensions and negotiations between
the hill kingdom and the new governor, who later styled himself the sultan,
would continue into his descendants’ reign. However, in his battle against
the yavanas, Sridhara Vyasa’s Kshatriya hero remains a solitary fighter, a
warrior chieftain defending his status and sovereignty by dint of his individual
prowess.

Depictions of the Enemy

The descriptions of the sultanate officials and their armies also figure in
Sridhara Vyasa’s construction of his martial hero’s personality. Ranmal is
fighting his battle against no small army. Compared to the numerous mentions
of the ‘seventeen-thousand-strong army’ of the sultanate or the yavanas,
Ranmal’s army is also only mentioned once throughout the narrative. The
fighters who make up this vast fighting force are commanded by men of
authority who can issue royal decrees and expect submission based on the
strength of their arms, horses, and elephants. The commander of the sultanate
forces is in fact described as the ‘best among brave warriors’, who, on hearing
of Ranmal’s insubordination, immediately gave orders to beat the drums
announcing a war.71 These men and their armies are feared all over the lands
surrounding Idar:

71 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 37.
70 In Praise of Kings

The loud, horse-faced fighters are courageous,

They are harsh, pillaging fierce Persians (SƗUDĞLNƗ),
They plunder entire villages, capture women, children, and cows,
The men look on as the lowly soldiers carry them away.72

The characterisation of Ranmal’s rivals as themselves brave and fierce

indirectly inflates the protagonist’s dominance, as he becomes their annihilator.
It is noteworthy that Sridhara Vyasa does not use a term with religious
connotations such as musalamana, which would have been well-known at the
time, to describe the sultanate soldiers. He chooses to represent those who
constitute the sultanate army in a variety of different Sanskritised terms, like
mleccha, asura,ĞDND, and yavana as well as more specifically ethnic terms such
as bagƗOƯ\D(Bengali) or SƗUDVƯNDV (Persians). The sultan himself is referred
to as aspati, derived from the Sanskrit asvapati, or the Lord of Horses.73 In
representing the Muslims with this vocabulary, the poet is indeed following
the conventions of his times rather than emphasising the difference between
religious groups.
Over the past two decades, scholars have revisited a number of early
medieval and medieval narratives from diverse literary and cultural traditions
to demonstrate that representations of Muslims were often much less binary
and oppositional than they might appear upon superficial reading.74 Within the
Sanskrit and vernacular narrative traditions from western India specifically,

72 Sridhara Vyasa, 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 41.

73 Cynthia Talbot finds a similar representation of the ruler of Delhi in her study of
Sanskrit inscriptions from medieval Andhra. She concludes that the use of this term in
the literature of this period to identify the Turkic rulers was a portrayal of them as one
of multiple, not binary, competing groups like the Gajapatis or ‘Lords of the Elephant
Corps’ in Orissa, or Narapati or ‘Lords of Men’ in Andhra. See Talbot, ‘Inscribing the
Other,’ 708. B.D. Chattopadhyaya, in a study of inscriptions and literary texts from the
eighth to the fourteenth centuries in different parts of the subcontinent, also finds that
Muslim rulers are often represented as one of many claimants in situations of intense
and constant competition. Even in the socio-religious sphere, Chattopadhyaya finds
that the Muslims are represented as one of many ideological components that existed
within different local contexts and historical situations. Chattopadhyaya, Representing
the Other?, 58.
74 Some important examples of this scholarship include: Talbot, ‘Inscribing the Other,’
692–722; Metcalf, ‘Too Little Too Much,’ 951–67; Chattopadhyaya, Representing the
Other?; Thapar, ‘The Tyranny of Labels,’ 990–1014 and Somanatha.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 71

terms such as mleccha were used to denote Muslims. Used extensively in the
5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, the word mleccha had been carried over from the Vedic times,
when it was used to refer to those who could not speak Sanskrit correctly.75 Later
in the epic and Puranic tradition, this term, along with yavana and shaka, came
to be used for those groups of people who entered the subcontinent from the
northwest and central Asia and gained considerable amounts of political power.
The terms also came to connote a lack of culture and civilisation and were
used for indigenous tribes and foreigners by authors who composed literary
works and texts for inscriptions. In general, these groups were recognised as
those who challenged or did not adhere to Brahminical norms. In the early
medieval and medieval periods, these designations were revived to refer to
Muslims, as was the characterisation of barbarian or ‘outsider’.76 The Muslims
could thus be equated with the foreigners and tribal people because of their
common disregard for Brahmanism.77
While Sridhara Vyasa makes use of these conventional terms, his account
presents another image of Ranmal’s enemy that seems to contradict the
‘inclusive’ nature of the terms. He, in fact, appears to be conscious of a religious
difference when he uses the term ‘hindu’78 for Ranmal and µUDKDPƗ۬L\D¶or
followers of Rahaman79, for some of the sultanate soldiers. An awareness of
the intricacies of the enemy’s religious and ritual practices is also apparent in
the following description of the scene of prayer:

The multicoloured fabrics are spread out, the sound of the call to prayer fills
the atmosphere, the name of god Rahaman is remembered,
The soldiers perform communal prayers (QLPƗM) while the sultanate cavalry
stands guard.80

These soldiers are also engaging in the stock actions associated with the
Muslims: capturing Brahmins, women, and children. However, the yavanas
are not alone in capturing men of religion. The poet notes:

Ranmal cuts off their [the yavanas] heads; with a club he smashes the mlecchas,

75 Thapar, ‘Tyranny of Labels,’ 1002.

76 Talbot, ‘Inscribing the Other,’ 698. Also see Chattopadhyaya, Representing the Other?, 30.
77 Talbot, ‘Inscribing the Other,’ 699.
78 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 48.
79 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 18.
80 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 49.
72 In Praise of Kings

When he suddenly throws his spear in the battlefield, they flee leaving their
swords,
He captures the holy men and kills their monkey-like commanders.81

Although we are told that helpless Brahmins and children look to Ranmal’s
army for protection,82 this act of capturing the holy men indicates that both
sides were probably engaging in such deeds. It can be suggested, as others
have, that just as the desecration of temples was a political act, the capture of
holy men may also have had civic implications and was conceivably committed
by any side in the contest for power.83

Conclusion
5D۬PDOODFKDQGD is a literary work evidencing fifteenth-century cultural
innovations that were taking place in the modest hinterland courts of Gujarat
at a time when the political landscape was rapidly changing. Local elites such
as Ranmal were becoming prominent political players in a world in which the
centralised imperial reach was fading and regional aspirants such as Zafar Khan
(later Muzaffar Shah) were making inroads. These new regional contenders
needed the military and economic resources that men like Ranmal, with
their holds over strategic fort kingdoms, commanded. Yet, while they were
rising in status, these aspiring chieftains may not have had the resources to
commission multiple imperial histories nor sponsor large-scale building or
epigraphic projects: as we have seen in 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, too, the only physical
space that Ranmal occupies is the fort and the battlefield on which he can
display his prowess as a warrior. But in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
‘courts’ like Ranmal’s did become sites where new ideas, engendered at the

81 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 45.
82 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 40.
83 These representations are quite different from how the Muslims are depicted in
.ƗQKD‫ڲ‬DGH3UDEDQGKD the later narrative by the Nagar Brahmin poet Padmanabha.
This narrative speaks of the battle between Kanhadade, the Chauhan chieftain of Jalor,
and ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji, and contains similar, if more elaborate descriptions of battle
scenery, horses, and weapons than in the 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD. Unlike Ranmal, Kanhadade
loses to the yavana forces due to an act of treachery; the enmity is resolved at another
narrative level as the sultan, we are made aware, is an incarnation of Shiva, and his
daughter, Piroja, has in fact been a virtuous Kshatriya woman in many of her previous
births.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 73

local levels, reverberated in the changing political climate and impacted the
political status of their leaders. The literary innovations such as the multilingual
5D۬PDOODFKDQGDor adaptations of conventional genres such as mahakavyas,
epics, and masnavis, that developed in parts of central and northern India
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, are indicative of the immense
cultural potential that such hinterland courts had, but that have often been
ignored in historiographies that focus on conventional sources emanating
from large empires.
While men like Ranmal lacked formal courtly paraphernalia, their fortified
frontier provinces emerged as spaces where ideas of resistance, heroism,
and kingship at the local level could be reimagined during the fifteenth
century. In times of transformations, as Sridhara Vyasa’s poem suggests, this
imagination was able to incorporate multiple possibilities. The poet constructs
a heroic personality for his protagonist that is a bricolage of conventional and
unconventional elements including the juxtaposition of multiple languages such
as Sanskrit, Dimgal, and words from the Persian register. Ranmal is compared
with Rama, but is also a warrior in the likeness of Ravana who is helped by
little more than his own skills and strength, in his fight to protect his small
territory from the enemy. Similarly, while the more normative attributes of
an Indic king are alluded to in the Sanskrit preface, the bulk of the narrative
remains about the violent battle, and the accompanying destruction of the
enemy forces. The gory descriptions of war and the onomatopoeic verses serve
to create an aural and visual sense of a fierce battle that Ranmal, the solitary
hero, fights alone to protect his lands and honour. In reality a local chieftain,
he imagines a domain that is all-encompassing, and himself as Timur, who
is reputed for shaking the foundations of Delhi. Ultimately, the opposition
between Ranmal and his enemies, the yavanas, is presented in complex terms.
On one hand, the poet depicts Ranmal’s sultanate rivals as being formidable
and fierce warriors, much greater in number than the chieftain’s own army.
He also describes the sultanate soldiers in ethnic, rather than religious terms.
On the other hand, however, the poet appears to place emphasis on religious
binaries that enhance the chieftain’s persona as an elite Indic warrior. Further,
rather than focusing on his achievements as a patron or administrator, Ranmal
is lauded as a hero for his prowess in battle. His lineage thus need not be from a
pure bloodline of Kshatriya rulers, but may draw its inheritance from Puranic
and local heroes alike.
The languages in which these ideas are expressed also played a crucial role
in the way the chieftain’s persona was constructed by the poet. In the short
74 In Praise of Kings

Sanskrit preface, the poet gestures towards the classical Indic courtly ethos
that was associated with royalty. Ranmal is not quite a great king and lacks
any royal titles. But the poet does speak of him as the destroyer of great kings
and adapts his ‘building’ agenda to his own immediate needs. Drawing from
the prestige of the cosmopolitan language, these verses tantalisingly hint at
the possibility of royal greatness, but their claims are also circumscribed by
the protagonist’s actual political and social constraints. As has been well
established, Sanskrit as a language of power was in decline by the second
millennium of the Common Era, and many other language choices were
becoming available to patrons in Gujarat. Yet, as we shall see in the following
chapters too, Sanskrit, particularly from the mid-fifteenth century to a few
years after the end of Mahmud Begada’s reign, continued to carry import in
the ways in which the chieftains and even the sultan chose to articulate their
royal aspirations.
It is noteworthy that the primary language that the poet chooses to use is
not the Gujarati that was emerging in the region from the early decades of the
fifteenth century, but the trans-regional Dimgal style that was well-known
all over western India among warrior lineages, both elite and non-elite. Here,
too, the poet merges universal/cosmopolitan allusions with regional ones.
But in doing so, he appears to create a work that would not only establish his
patron’s local prestige, but connect him to the wider warrior ethos that was
evolving all over western India. While Ranmal himself did not make it into the
seventeenth-century Marwari historian Nainsi’s account of the Rathods, his
ancestor Sonugji and their establishment at the Idar fort did, and Ranmal and
his memory certainly found their way to Alexander Forbes and Shayamaladas’s
nineteenth-century histories based on bardic narratives.
Chieftains such as Ranmal dotted the landscape of northern and western
India during the fifteenth century and became crucial players amongst rapidly
shifting loyalties. Like Ranmal’s fort kingdom, their frontier kingdoms may
not have had elaborate courtly accoutrements, but these men often patronised
poets and panegyrists whose literary works articulated their local aspirations
and stretched their achievements beyond their historical realities. Each local
context then provided its own unique configurations of ideals that interacted
with the trans-local processes of regional state formation. Moreover, like Idar,
many of these places continued to remain vital to the regional kingdoms, and
later the establishment of Mughal rule in these regions. While Ranmal’s legacy
survives in 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD¶V single manuscript and a few local legends, the
Gujarati expression ‘I have conquered Idar-fort’ or ‘idariyo gadh’ even today
signifies the accomplishment of an impossible task.
 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD 75

Narratives like 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD epics with a strong oral character,

popularising war and the valour of the martial hero, continued to circulate
in the region long after the fifteenth century, as we shall see in chapter 5.
However, during this period the local warrior chieftains, whose marital and
kingly identities were still evolving, were also laying claim to more classical
linguistic and cultural resources that were simultaneously reminiscent of the
bygone Chaulukya–Vaghela literary universe and anticipated newly emerging
regional aspirations. It is to these that I turn in the next chapter.
76 In Praise of Kings

Gangadhara’s Oeuvre
Cosmopolitan Poetry for Local Kings

Oral narratives and written works inspired by oral traditions were crucial to the
process through which local Gujarati chieftains imagined and represented their
political aspirations during the ferment and flux of the fifteenth century. Such
works, expressed in the regional language, were one means of self-fashioning
for chieftains and for their fortified kingdoms, but other artistic narrative
forms proved useful as well. Two significant works in Sanskrit, one from the
court of the Chauhans of Champaner and another from that the Chudasamas
of Junagadh, along with a variety of inscriptions on stone, suggest that, in their
quest to affirm their political and social positions in the wake of the growing
imperial power of the sultans at Ahmadabad, the warrior chieftains drew on
classical courtly models of kingship that had evolved all over north India from
the seventh century, or post-Gupta period, onwards. They did this by deploying
the aestheticised Sanskrit literary tradition.
This chapter focuses on these two Sanskrit narratives, both of which were
composed by a poet named Gangadhara who travelled to Gujarat sometime
during the mid-fifteenth century from Vijayanagara in south India. The first of
these is a play entitled *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DNDor ‘the play on the glory
of Gangadas’1 about the then-ruling chieftain of Champaner in northeastern
Gujarat. In this composition, which follows the conventions of classical Sanskrit
drama, the poet narrates the Chauhan king’s campaign against, and subsequent
victory over, the Ahmadabad sultan. The second work is 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD,

1 Gangadhara, *DQJDGƗVD3UDWƗSD9LOƗVD1Ɨ‫ܒ‬DNDP. The title can also be translated as

µ7KHSOHDVXUHVRI*DৄJDGƗVDDQG3UDWƗSD GHYƯ ¶DVWKHZLIHRIWKHFKLHIWDLQZDVFDOOHG
Pratapadevi’. Henceforth *391
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 77

or ‘biography of king Mandalik’, a mahakavya or epic poem eulogising the

Chudasama king, Mandalik, of Junagadh in the Saurashtra peninsula.2 In both
works, Gangadhara displays his competence as a poet trained in the classical
Sanskrit literary traditions, and fashions his patrons as ideal rulers in the style
of older Puranic kings. Yet, in their contents and concerns, the compositions
remain securely rooted in their specific spatial contexts of Champaner and
Junagadh, two significant kingdoms that were located on the periphery of
the Muzaffarid sultanate’s heartlands, and in the historical moment of their
interactions with the regional sultans who, by first half of the fifteenth century,
had become the indisputable masters of the region.
Before making the journey to Gujarat in search of new patrons, Gangadhara
had served at the court of the Vijayanagara king Pratapadevaraya, or Devaraya
II (r. 1426–1447). He first went on a pilgrimage to the holy city of Dwarka,
whence he proceeded to serve Sultan Muhammad Shah (r. 1442–1451) who
ruled from his capital at Ahmadabad. At the court in Ahmadabad, Gangadhara
encountered Sanskrit scholars, whom he overpowered with his excellent poetic
skills. The writer himself, in fact, refers to this as a digvijaya – conquest of
all directions – indicating a complete victory in the style of traditional Indic
kings. After impressing the Gurjara sultan with his poetic abilities, Gangadhara
continued southeast in his peregrinations to the kingdom of Champaner. While
he does not specifically mention doing so, it is most likely that he would have
visited the Junagadh court right after his visit to Dwarka in the Saurashtra
peninsula. In this roving way, Gangadhara, the poet from the south, found
patronage for his skills in Sanskrit, a cosmopolitan language, in the regional
Islamic sultanate court as well as a number of local Rajput courts all over
Gujarat.
The poet chose to compose biographical works in Sanskrit, although several
language choices were available to Gujarati chieftains. If local chieftains
already had access to locally recognised bards who composed eulogies for
them in the regional languages and styles, patronising Sanskrit poetry must
have served a distinct purpose. By focusing on the two Sanskrit narratives,
*D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND and the 0D۪GDOƯNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD, I explore
how the cosmopolitan language of Sanskrit and the corresponding idiom of
aesthecised poetry, or kavya, were put in the service of local kings in a period
when vernacularisation was concurrently under way.

2 Velankar, ‘0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOƯND¶ DQG *DQJDGKDUD µĝUƯ*DৄJƗGKDUDNDYL.৚W ĝUƯ 0Ɨ৆ঌDOƯND

0DKƗNƗY\DP¶+HQFHIRUWKMNC.
78 In Praise of Kings

Over the past few decades, Sheldon Pollock has demonstrated the close
relationship between language and political power, specifically focusing on
the role of Sanskrit in the royal courts of South and Southeast Asia prior to
the first millennium of the Common Era.3 In the post-1000 period, however,
Pollock suggests that the prestigious position of Sanskrit was gradually eroded
by the different regional vernaculars developing from this period onwards.
While these languages showed a keen awareness of regional specificities, they
nevertheless drew from the literary tropes offered by Sanskrit, particularly the
genre of aestheticised poetry known as kavya. While Pollock’s formulations are
extremely significant in the study of the literary cultures of the subcontinent,
more recent scholarship has shown that Sanskrit was not relegated to the
background during the second millennium, but, in fact, came to serve a variety
of different functions and was to become one among the prestigious language
choices in this period. 4 In the case of fifteenth-century Gujarat, Sanskrit,
available at a premium, continued to serve as a language of significance that
could be harnessed by local chieftains seeking to secure their positions within
their patrimonies. Sanskrit was also used in conjunction with other languages
of repute in use in the region, such as Arabic, Persian, and Gujarati, particularly
in the writing of inscriptions. Further, the chieftains or rajas of Gujarat also
continued to draw prestige for their Kshatriya warrior aspirations through the
partronage of Bhats and Charans, the traditional genealogist historians who
sang in their own specialised dialects. As we have seen, the 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD
by the Brahmin poet Sridhara Vyasa, drew on these oral traditions, combining
them with verses from classical Sanskrit to enhance the patron’s reputation. The
Sanskrit works produced in the region were thus located in a courtly milieu in
which a variety of languages and genres were available for patronage.
The itinerant poet, Gangadhara, used his literary skills and imagination
to fashion and articulate for his patrons a rhetoric and ideology of kingship
that combined the idealised monarch of the Indic tradition with a keen sense
of contemporary political exigencies. While Gangadhara’s work evokes older
Puranic models of kingship, particularly in its employment of the Sanskrit

3 For Sheldon Pollock’s formulations on these issues, see for instance, Pollock, ‘India
in the Vernacular Millennium, 41–74; ‘The Cosmopolitan Vernacular,’ 6–37; and The
Language of the Gods.
4 One example of a detailed study on the changing role of languages, Sanskrit, Persian,
and the regional vernaculars, comes from Sumit Guha’s work on the Deccan. See Guha,
‘Speaking Historically,’ 1084–1103; and ‘Transitions and Translations’. For a discussion
on the emergence of regional Sanskrit, see Bronner and Shulman, ‘A Cloud Turned
Goose,’ 1–30.
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 79

kavya tradition, the models are in fact reconfigured to suit the political realities
of the local kingdoms of Gujarat. Although an outsider, Gangadhara displayed
a strong geographical sensibility in his work, layering immediate physical
domains and imagined ones, creating a constant interplay between the local
and the cosmopolitan, the particular and the universal.

Local Kingdoms and Sultans in the Mid-fifteenth Century

By the mid-fifteenth century, the Muzzaffarid sultans were recognised as the
undisputed overlords of the region. Their imperial position and authority are
visibly acknowledged in inscriptions from all over Gujarat, including those
patronised by local non-Muslim lineages.5 However, the Rajput chieftains’
access to material resources, such as forests, as well as pilgrimage and trade
routes, made their fortified kingdoms crucial to the Ahmadabad sultans’ quest
to maintain control over the wider region. Their hold over these resources,
through local networks, made the fortified kingdoms formidable nodes of
power that the sultans were constantly forced to harness, accommodate, and
subdue, by force if necessary, in order to increase their advantage in the political
landscape that had developed in the aftermath of Delhi sultanate rule.
Located at a height of 2,500 feet above the surrounding plains, some forty
kilometres northeast of Baroda, Champaner separates present-day Gujarat
from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. In medieval times, the city
was an important location, giving those who ruled over Patan and Ahmadabad
access to, as well as protection from, the Malwa region. As oral traditions and
excavations demonstrate, the Pavagadh hill at Champaner was also the seat of a
complex religious landscape. It had long been a site for the worship of goddess
Kali but appears to have had a number of Shaiva as well as Jain shrines.6
As an active pilgrimage centre it would have also been a valuable source of
revenue for rulers and, as excavations have shown, it was the site of a large

5 Sheikh, ‘Languages of Public Piety,’ 186–209. See also, Jamindar, ‘Contribution of the
Sanskrit Epigraphs,’ 195–204.
6 Pavagadh remains an active pilgrimage site for the worship of the goddess Kali in
modern day Gujarat. A number of traditional garba songs from the region, to which
women danced in celebration of the Goddess, are also dedicated to Kali who resides at
Pavagadh. However, the remains of a Lakulisa–Mahadeva temple, as well as an actively
worshipped Jain shrine, are also to be found on the hill. The numerous dargahs and
mosques that survive from the medieval city of Champaner–Muhammadabad at the
base of the hill further contribute to the complex religious geography of the site.
80 In Praise of Kings

city built by Sultan Mahmud Begada (r. 1459–1511), the most influential of
the Gujarati sultans in the late fifteenth century.7 Junagadh, in the Saurashtra
peninsula, was also a significant economic and strategic location for control
over Gujarat, with access to important pilgrimage sites like Girnar, Dwarka,
and Somanatha. Long before the rule of the Muzzafarid sultans, the wealth of
these places, particularly Somanatha, had been a point of contention between
the peninsular chieftains and those ruling in the east from Patan.
Hill forts like Idar, Champaner, and Junagadh were strategically important
for the sultans to be able to rule over the entire region. Until Mahmud Begada
managed to capture Champaner and Junagadh in the late fifteenth century
and established new towns there, vain attempts to gain control over the two
forts had been made by almost all his predecessors. Sultan Mahmud’s reign
marked an important shift in the nature of the polity in Gujarat, as older models
of alliance politics were integrated into the larger sultanate polity.8 But, prior
to Mahmud’s takeover in the fifteenth century, chieftains like the Rathods of
Idar, the Chauhans of Champaner, and the Chudasamas of Junagadh remained
extremely powerful in their local domains; even after his reign, they reemerged
as forces to be contended with.
Within Saurashtra, for instance, the Chudasamas of Junagadh were the most
powerful among the lineages active in the region. Like the other clans, including
the Gohils and Jhalas, the Chudasamas had migrated into the peninsula in the
early medieval period. The Chudasamas had also long been associated with
the abhiras, or pastoralists, with close links to the Sammas of Sindh, who
were Muslims, as well as to the Jadeja chieftains of Kachchh, who claimed
Rajput descent. The Chudasamas were a branch of the Samma lineage that
acquired the principality of Vanthali from the local ruler and subsequently
occupied the already fortified city of Junagadh.9 From there they were able
to control a considerable portion of Saurashtra until the sultans from the east
defeated them in the late fifteenth century. As Samira Sheikh has discussed,
prior to this defeat, the Chudasamas had come to acquire an elaborate court

7 Excavations were first conducted at the site of Champaner in the 1940s by the German
scholar Hermann Goetz. Later, beginning in 1969, a six-year-long archaeological
project was led by Professor Mehta of the University of Baroda. For details, see Mehta,
Champaner: A Medieval Capital.
8 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 106–119. For details on the Chudasama’s reinvention of status
and rise to prominence, see Sheikh, ‘Alliance, Genealogy and Political Power,’ 29–61.
9 Sheikh, ‘Alliance, Genealogy and Political Power,’ 32–33.
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 81

and aspired to a prestigious Sanskritic identity, giving up the more heterodox

traditions that the Jain and other historical chronicles attribute to them.10 A
number of hero-stones, or paliyas, in the region mention the Chudasamas as
rulers; inscriptions at temples and step-wells patronised by merchants, courtiers
and elite women testify to the same. In these inscriptions, the Chudasamas are
linked to the Puranic dynasties of the moon; later inscriptions, as well as the
0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWDlink them to the Yadava family of Krishna, legitimately
incorporating them into the Vaishnava fold.11
Less is known about the ancestry of the Chauhans of Champaner. A late
nineteenth-century tradition claims they belonged to the Khichi branch of the
Chauhan lineage at Ranthambhor, who had migrated to Gujarat from Rajasthan
soon after the conquest of Khichiwada by the armies of ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji.12
While it is not entirely clear how they acquired the Champaner territory, a
Sanskrit inscription from c. 1469 gives a genealogy of nine predecessors of
Gangadas, indicating their long-standing presence in the region. The inscription
is composed in a mix of Sanskrit and Old Gujarati and specifies that it was
issued during the victorious reign of ‘the great king’ (PDKƗUƗMD) Jayasimhadeva,
for the benefit of his mother. It notes:

,QWKHOLQHDJHRI3৚WKYƯUƗMDWKHFKLHIRIWKH&KDXKDQV, many kings have ruled

(Old Gujarati: JKD۬DUƗMƗKRƗ). In the family of Hammiradeva, the ornament of
his kula, was Raja Shri Ramadeva, Shri Changadeva, Shri Chachimgadeva…
Shri Palhanasimha, Shri Jitakarna, Shri Kumpuraula, Shri Virdhavala, Shri
6DYDUƗMD6KUL5DJKDGHYD6KUL7ULীEDNDEKnjSD6KUL*DQJDUDMHVKZDUD+LV
son, renowned for increasing the religious merit of his ancestors, worshipper
of Shri Shakti, and a perpetual bestower of cows and gold (Sanskrit: nitya
VXYDUQDGKHQXGƗQDNDUWƗ) as well as the giver of grants (ĞDVDQD) to Brahmins,
donor of elephants, the illustrious king over kings (UƗMƗGKƯUƗMD) Shri
Jayasimhadeva in the village Ayasuamanu, built [this] well for the spiritual
benefit of his own mother, Shri Phanmadevi …13

10 Sheikh, ‘Alliance, Genealogy and Political Power,’ 36.

11 Sheikh, ‘Alliance, Genealogy and Political Power,’ 36–38.
12 :DWVRQµ+LVWRULFDO6NHWFKRIWKH+LOO)RUWUHVVRI3ƗZƗJDGK¶6HYHUDOOLQHDJHVRI
Rajasthan and Gujarat trace their migrations from their original homelands to ‘Ala’
al-Din’s incursions to the region. However, many of these are later recordings and it is
difficult to establish the veracity of this tradition.
13 For full text of the inscription, see Watson, ‘Historical Sketch of the Hill Fortress of
3ƗZƗJDঌK¶±
82 In Praise of Kings

While Jayasimhadeva, the son of Gangarajeshvara (Gangadas), thus

embodies all the qualities of an ideal ruler, it is noteworthy that the inscription
links the Chauhans of Champaner to historical kings like Prithviraja and
Hammira, who were popular in the wider region of western India, rather than
to a divine lineage. It may be recalled that in 5D۬PDOODFKDQGDthe protagonist,
Ranmal, also sought links to the same locally renowned historical figures,
suggesting that such connections enhanced the prestige of these upwardly
mobile men within the social world of warrior elites. The 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ
also depicts the Chauhan rulers of Champaner as actively involved in the
politics of the region and as an obstruction to the sultans’ efforts to consolidate
their rule. Around 1416, Trimbakdas, the Raja of Champaner, seems to
have formed a confederation with other chieftains of the region, including
Raja Punja of Idar and Satarsal of Jhalawar, to invite Sultan Hoshang Shah
of Malwa to invade Ahmadabad while its ruler, Sultan Ahmad was away
from the capital dealing with other rebels.14 Sikandar also writes that when
Sultan Muhammad II (Ahmad’s son) marched against Raja Gangadas (son
of Trimbakdas) of Champaner, the latter was defeated, despite putting up a
fight, and fled to the upper part of the fort: ‘When the garrison of the castle
EHFDPH VWUDLQHG WKH 5DMD VHQW DPEDVVDGRUV WR 6XOWƗQ 0HKPnjG RI 0ƗQGX
offering to pay him a lakh of WƗQNƗV for every march he should make to his
assistance’ – an episode, as we shall see, alluded to somewhat differently the
*D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQD‫ܒ‬DND.15
Drawing on B. D. Chattopadhyaya’s analysis of the societal processes of
local state formation and on ‘Kshatriyayisation’, I thus suggest that these
processes continued in western India even after 1200 and contributed to
defining the manner in which the chieftains chose to portray themselves amid
the fluctuating politics of fifteenth century Gujarat. By this time, the rulers of
Champaner and Junagadh had held their patrimonies in the region for several
generations, and as inscriptions and textual production show, they patronised
scribes and men of literature, even coming from afar, to write of their lineages
and rule. These chieftains gradually developed large fortifications that housed
wid-ranging populations including priests, warriors, traders, and craftsmen,
and were deeply involved in the politics of the region. The resources they
controlled were valuable to the sultans, who were trying to consolidate their

14 Sikandar,0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, trans., 14–15.

15 Sikandar,0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ trans., 24.
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 83

rule as well as fight their extra-regional rivals. It is in this context that the
choice of Sanskrit and the articulation of kingship within the cosmopolitan
idiom of Sanskrit kavya acquire particular interest.16

The Narratives
The *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND exists in a single manuscript.17 On the
basis of the script used, its editor, B. J. Sandesara has suggested that it may have
been copied sometime in the sixteenth century from an earlier manuscript.18
The original play, on the other hand, is believed to have been composed
much closer to the actual historical event in 1449, possibly between 1450 and
1460. The accuracy of this estimate is supported by the fact that after the
reign of Gangadhara’s Vijayanagara patron, Pratapadevaraya, the fortunes
of Vijayanagara seem to have declined: it is therefore possible that the poet
left this court in search of better prospects in other parts of the subcontinent.
The *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND is a play in nine acts that makes use of
both prose and poetry. It is composed primarily in Sanskrit but the Sanskrit is
interspersed with a form of Prakrit, used traditionally in Sanskrit classical drama
by the court jester (vidusaka) and female characters. In addition, the soldiers
of the sultan’s army use a language that appears to be some form of Hindavi,
which the poet associates with Muslim soldiers.19 However, in keeping with
convention, the sultan speaks Sanskrit, as do the other prominent male characters

16 These social groups are often referred to in texts from these courts in formulaic terms
as ‘eighteen varna’ or castes.
17 The manuscript of the *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DNDis in the British Library. British

Library MS 2388. It is missing a few pages and lacks a colophon with the exact date
and place of production; it only tells us: ‘This book belongs to the excellent Vaidya
Bhamaji (f. 136). No commentaries on the text have yet been discovered, nor has the
text ever been translated, although B. J. Sandesara has discussed some portions of it;
see Sandesara, ‘*D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVD E\ *D৆JƗGKDUD¶ ± DQG µ'HWDLOHG
'HVFULSWLRQRIWKH)RUWRI&KƗPSƗQHU¶±6DQGHVDUDVXEVHTXHQWO\HGLWHGWKHSOD\
which was published by the Oriental Institute in 1973.
18 Sandesara in introduction to *391, ii.
19 I am grateful to Francesca Orsini pointing out the link with Hindavi in this part of the

text. One example of their speech is as follows:

  D‫܈‬NDXQGƗODPGHNKDWD۪NLPXOD‫ڲ‬KRFKRKPLNKXGƗODPPNƗ
 ED۪GƗWƯUDNDPƗ۬ƗOHNDUDKL۪GnjGLZƗQƗLKƗ۪
 Ɨ\ƗMƗ\DNDKƗ۪Ư"WƗODSDJDGR۪JKƗORJDOƗ۪SƗJD‫ڲ‬Ư
 ELVWƗNƯNDUWƗNKXGƗODPDJHGDUWƗQDKLQDPKDNX۪’ *391, VII, 53.
84 In Praise of Kings

in the play. The setting for the performance itself is the festival dedicated to
the goddess Mahakali. While the political conflict between the Chauhan king
and his rival, the sultan of Ahmadabad, form the basic core of the narrative, it
also follows the conventions of courtly Sanskrit drama by including elaborate
performances of praise for the palace and the ruler as well as displaying a variety
of emotions (rasas). The *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND also features another
important element of the genre: the play within the play.
Briefly, the plot of the *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND is as follows:
The sultan has demanded the Chauhan chieftain’s daughter in marriage, but
the latter is unwilling to stake the honour of his lineage by acceding to the
request. Meanwhile, news arrives that the sultan of Mandapa (Mandu) has
agreed to assist Champaner against his abiding rival, the Gujarat sultan. This
brings great joy to everyone present: elborate prayers are offered to the family
goddess and several Vedic rituals are performed. The festivities continue,
and a set of actors, who, like the poet himself, hail from the south, perform a
play in honour of the chieftain, depicting an affectionate exchange between
him and the queen, Pratapadevi, in their youth. While the king and the queen
are enjoying the play, a chamberlain brings the news that one of Gangadas’s
generals has arrived at court with the slain heads of some men from the
sultan’s army, the yavanas, as Muslims are often called in this period. The
battle has begun and a victory has evidently been achieved, as the sultan’s
attempt at reconciliation in a later act will also suggest. A message is sent to
Gangadas stating that the reason behind the sultan’s attack on Champaner
is that Gangadas has been sheltering certain recalcitrant, trouble-making
landholders or garasiyas in his court.20 It would be wise, the message suggests,
for Gangadas to accept the sultan’s suzerainty instead of acting in favour of
his enemies. This message is sent to the Champaner court by two Rajput allies
of Muhammad Shah. However, for Gangadas, his independence is so precious
that he insults his fellow Kshatriyas who have accepted the sultan’s authority.
A confrontation is inevitable. Gangadas now takes up arms himself, and, in
the ensuing battle, the Sultan’s forces suffer several reverses that force them
to flee. Gangadas decides not to pursue the retreating army because it would
be dishonourable to do so.

20 Garasiya (called ‘JUƗVLQR UƗMƗQDKD’ in the text) is a term that came to be used in
the period for landholders. It did not specify the ethnic or community origin of the
landholders (although some like the Kolis or Bhils were usually singled out). This term
could be used for landholders of different levels. See chapter 2 for more on this term.
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 85

The disheartened Sultan, however, is cheered when one of his Kshatriya

allies, Virama, who we are told is the son of a certain Punja,21 presents him with
a detailed map of the Pavachala fort in Champaner. The Sultan decides once
again to besiege the fort but again is forced to retreat. We are also made privy
to the fact that he is worried about a simultaneous attack on his armies by his
rival, the sultan of Mandapa, who we already know is allied with Gangadas.
The Sultan launches a new strategy of attacking the tribal areas around the
Champaner fort which, once sacked, will lead to its fall ‘like a ripe fruit’.22
Both parties seem to suffer equal reverses, and the trouble-making garasiyas
sheltered by the chieftain are killed as well. However, when the announcement
comes that the sultan of Mandapa is indeed on the outskirts of Muhammad
Shah’s territories and moving forward with a large army, the Sultan deems it
wise to give up the siege of Champaner. Gangadas once again refrains from
pursuing the retreating army, as his code of honour does not permit him to
attack an army that has turned back. The final act returns to the Champaner
court, and, while the last few folios of the manuscript are missing, the play
seems to end with the chieftain and his queen offering prayers to the goddess
Mahakali, who in turn grants them her blessings.
The other text under examination, the 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOƯNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD, is a Sanskrit
epic poem in ten sargas, or chapters, composed as a traditional carita or
biographical eulogy.23 It narrates the life and exploits of Mandalik, the
Chudasama chieftain of Junagadh. The narrative begins with a description of
the city of Jirnadurga, or Junagadh, and its formidable fort, which was ruled
by the Chudasamas. This is followed by a detailed genealogy of the lineage,
spanning the five generations preceding our hero, Mandalik. It is explained
that Mandalik’s father, Mahipala, obtained a son after seeking the favours of
the deity Radha-Damodara, another term for the Puranic diety, Krishna. The

21 *391, VI. Various Persian accounts tell us that Muhammad Shah conquered Idar in
1441. The Raja of Idar also gave his daughter to the sultan in acceptance of sultanate
suzerainty. Punja was in fact the name of the Idar chieftain that these accounts mention.
It is possible then that Virama is in fact the Idar chieftain’s son. The sultan also attacked
Bagar in the same year; see Bayley, The Local Muhommadan Dynasties of Gujarat,
130. The Sultan’s allies may have been the chieftains of these kingdoms.
22 *391VIII, 62.
23 Even though its author provides no information about himself except that he ‘was the
conqueror of the poets of the Kali age,’ it is indeed quite possible that the itinerant poet
from Vijayanagara, who had travelled to the courts of Ahmadabad and Champaner,
stopped at the Junagadh court on his way from Dwarka in order to continue his poetic
conquest of the directions or digvijaya; *391I, 18.
86 In Praise of Kings

child, therefore, is associated with Vishnu and is projected as his incarnation

– as Krishna – throughout the narrative.
Following the genealogy, the biography takes us through the childhood of
the prince, who grows up to be an extremely religious, intelligent, handsome,
and brave youth, who surpasses his teachers in everything. When Mandalik
becomes eligible for marriage, a suitable bride is found for him: the daughter
of the Gohil chief, Arjuna, who has been brought up by her paternal uncle,
Duda. The Krishnalike Mandalik is then installed as the crown prince, and,
under his administration, the city of Jirnadurga becomes a utopian place of
virtue, prosperity, and happiness. Chiefs from the neighbouring provinces
also offer their allegiance; only Sangan, ‘king of the Western Ocean’, remains
defiant. This chieftain can be identified as a pirate of the Vadhel clan who took
control over parts of the coast of southern Saurashtra.24 Mandalik is able to
quickly set Sangan straight, acquiring a rich tribute of gems and horses in the
bargain. He also conquers and kills Duda, his Gohil father-in-law, as a favour
to the yavana king, the sultan of Ahmadabad.
After this victory Mahipala hands over the kingdom to his son and retires
from active political life. Once on the throne, Mandalik asks his minister to
find him another suitable wife. The minister presents a list of about fifteen
princesses from all over the subcontinent. But the minister feels that the
princess most suitable for the young king is Uma, the daughter of the Jhala
chieftain Bhima. She is suitable both in terms of her own virtues as well as
her lineage. The poet describes the marriage procession and ceremony in
great detail. This is followed by a description of Mandalik’s benevolent rule,
wherein it is reiterated that the Jhala and Gohil chieftains serve the king in
a subordinate position.25 A considerable portion of the narrative that follows
describes the approach of spring and the king’s romantic dalliances with
the queens in the pleasure gardens, in imitation of classical kavya style and
Sanskrit court drama. After this interlude, the scene shifts back to the world
of military and political activity: Mandalik’s minister informs him that all his
neighbouring chieftains have accepted shelter ‘at his feet’ except Sangan, who
is once again challenging his authority. The protracted battle between the two
is described in detail and involves Sangan seeking aid from a Persian chief, or
parasika. Mandalik eventually defeats his enemy and acquires large booty. The
0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOƯNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWDends with a further eulogy of Mandalik that compares
him with Vishnu’s last incarnation, Kalki, the saviour of the dystopian Kali age.

24 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 117.

25 The Jhalas and Gohils were also locally powerful clans based in Saurashtra.
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 87

The Rhetoric of Kingship

Given that both the Chudasama and the Chauhans aspired for higher social
and political status in the region, the patronage of Sanskrit panegyrics may
have been one among many routes to fulfilling this aspiration. Kavya, Daud
Ali has convincingly argued, was crucial to the production and reproduction
of courtly culture.26 The transmission of the kavya tradition was accompanied
by elaborate gestures and had a ‘perfomative’ or ‘spectacular’ character to
it. Such signs and gestures were familiar to all those men and women who
were part of the courtly society. This meant that even if the language was not
always understood by all members of the audience, they had the shared ability
to interpret the indicators of this life. Ali thus argues that drama and poetry
produced in this tradition played an important role in shaping the ideologies
and values of the people who were part of the courtly world.27 Moreover, this
tradition, as it was associated with elite groups, was aspirational, and in the
post-Gupta period, came to be emulated by several large and small courts all
over India to suit their own needs. Even the *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND
and 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWDare not static reiterations of the formulaic values
of kingship in which the regional chieftain is merely fitted into a pre-existing
framework. Instead, both these works negotiate universal ideals of kingship.
These, in turn, are reconfigured by the needs of the local polities.
*D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND and 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD use highly
stylised idiomatic language and take place in what appears to be an elaborate
courtly setting with all its accoutrements. Gangadhara endows his protagonists,
Gangadas and Mandalik, with opulent palaces and courts within the precincts
of their forts. These forts, as we shall see, are replete with signs of prosperity,
including numerous temples dedicated to Puranic deities, lakes and wells
overflowing with water, ample food provisions, and weaponry. In Gangadhara’s

26 Daud Ali is specifically concerned with the courtly sources of beauty, refinement,
and love, which he points out were most volubly attested by literary texts that were
produced and heard widely at the households of men of rank. These included a wide
variety of praise-poems or eulogies, particularly in the form of inscriptions, as well
as exchanges of letters, manuals on style and performance like the 1Ɨ‫\ܒ‬DĞƗVWUD, as
well as shorter proverbial verses and stories with morals like the Pañcatantra, and
manuals on love and sexuality like the .ƗPDVnjWUD. See Ali, Courtly Culture, 78. For
more descriptive accounts of the history of kavya see Keith, The History of Sanskrit
Literature; Macdonell, The History of Sanskrit Literature; Warder, ,QGLDQ .ƗY\D
Literature.
27 Ali, Courtly Culture, 75–85.
88 In Praise of Kings

telling, Gangadas and Mandalik’s kingly duties are likewise more varied than
those of simple warriors: they include maintaining moral, political, and social
order in their kingdoms. It is the rule of these virtuous kings (and in the case of
Mandalik, the rule of his ancestors as well) that makes these places utopias of
prosperity and virtue. Already upon Mandalik’s coronation to the position of
crown prince, all the people in his father, Mahipal’s kingdom were happy and
conducting their duties with utmost honesty. There was no thief in the kingdom,
except the great sun who ‘robbed the darkness of its treasures’.28 No one recited
harsh words except the students of tarkashastra (a branch of the Nyaya school
of philosophy) and prince Mandalik himself only spoke sweet words.29 Nobody
told lies, apart from the ‘deceitful lover’, and if anyone did utter a falsehood
it would only be for the benefit of others and not with a selfish motive.30 The
merchants of the kingdom were also skilled and powerful, while the best of
the Brahmins were happy and satisfied.31 Mandalik’s own good qualities
are all-pervasive, preventing the populace from deviating from the path of
virtuousness. In sum, the poet indicates, in no uncertain terms, that Mandalik’s
rule and protection has brought unprecedented good to the people. These images
of the kings’ virtues are, in many ways, enduring, and belong to no particular
instance in time, but rather draw from the tradition of kavya literature. Using
this ornate kavya style of prose and poetry, *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND
and the 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD portray their patrons as idealised Kshatriya
kings. Both Gangadas and Mandalik are aware of this role and constantly
reiterate its constituent values. When Duda, the Gohil chief, asks Mandalik
to withdraw from the battle and ‘live long to enjoy the pleasures of having a
son’,32 he replies:

It is a merchant’s ambition to enjoy the pleasures of a home in the company

of a wife and relatives; a king aspires for the higher joys of heaven obtainable
by those who die on the battle-field.33

For the same reason, in the play set in Champaner, on the occasions when the
sultan’s army flees the battlefield, Gangadas chooses not to follow them because

28 MNC,,,DQG9HODQNDUµ0Ɨ৆GDOƯND¶, 43.
29 MNC, III. 4.
30 MNC, III. 6.
31 MNC, III.7.
32 9HODQNDUµ0ƗQGDOƯND¶DQGMNC, III.58.
33 MNC,,,DQG9HODQNDUµ0ƗQGDOƯND¶
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 89

attacking a fleeing army would not be an appropriate act for a Kshatriya.34 By

allowing his militarily superior rivals to run away without an actual fight, he
succeeds in establishing the superiority of Kshatriya values.
Such ideal kings also need excellent lineages. As mentioned previously,
the 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD provides a genealogy that covers five generations
prior to Mandalik’s birth. His ancestors, it suggests, belong to the lunar
lineage (chandra vamsha) and are of the yadava family or kula. All of them
are great warriors, have subdued neighbouring chieftains, and have also
been the destroyers of the yavanas. In addition to this, they have been of an
extremely virtuous and religious disposition and have always been generous
to the Brahmins. Mandalik, who is himself a partial incarnation of Damodara,
or Vishnu, shares all these qualities with his ancestors, making him a fitting
descendent for this illustrious line of kings. While the play does not provide
a conventional genealogy for Gangadas, he is also mentioned more than
once as the descendent of the great Chauhan Hammira of Ranthambhor, and
ism represented as a virtuous and religious benefactor of the Brahmins. His
virtuousness is, in fact attested to, by a disembodied voice from the sky. When
the Sultan receives the news that the women of his harem have been captured
by the Chauhan chieftain, he is angry and alarmed. But the voice (meant to
be divine) reassures him that:

These dancing girls were brought before Gangadas while he was sitting with
Pratapadevi, Namalladevi, and other queens. The king who did never cast a
glance at other women was displeased; he gave jewels and ornaments to the
girls and returned them safely in palanquins to the sultan’s camp.35

Both narratives, then, construct the personalities of their protagonists within

a formulaic Indic idiom that later came to be associated with a legitimate Rajput
high culture; thus entirely negating the more ambiguous origins of these groups.
It is also worth digressing to note here that the capture of women, along with
horses and elephants, as spoils of war by the victor was a common feature in
elite Rajput narratives, particularly from the sixteenth century onwards. The
women therefore held crucial value in the ways in which these warrior elites
negotiated power between rivals in times when these groups were asserting their

34 *391, VIII, 71.

35 *391 VIII, 70.
90 In Praise of Kings

status.36 While this feature was less common in fifteenth-century narratives,

as a narrative device, the capture of women plays two roles. As seen in the
*D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVD, the protagonist’s capture of women affirms his
military prowess and dominance over the Sultan’s forces. But it also gives
Gangadas the opportunity to demonstrate his moral superiority, as he can
magnanimously return the women to the Sultan.
The depictions of Gangadas and Mandalik’s positions as kings are thus
located firmly within the political contexts of Champaner and Junagadh. At first
glance, while the *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDand the 0Ɨ۬GDOƯNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWDseem
to contain most of the essential elements of the courtly kavya tradition, they
present unusually detailed depictions of the political activity surrounding the
Champaner (Campakapuri) and Junagadh (Jirnadurga) kingdoms. Gangadhara
also mentions specific personal names of military commanders, courtiers,
subordinates, and so forth, along with the details of the events that he chooses
to portray. His narratives thereby engage with the complexities of the context
within which they are produced, making them accessible to the audience that
was consciously aware of and actively involved in that context. The universal
and timeless ideals of kingship find themselves modified by the needs of this
localised environment.
Thus, while the initial reason for the Gujarati Sultan’s attack on Champaner
appears to be Gangadas’s refusal to give him his daughter in marriage, the
real reason is revealed to the audience only in a later act of the play. The two
‘Kshatriya’ allies of the sultan have written a letter to the Chauhan chieftain,
stating:

Do not shelter the JDUƗVL\ƗV, who are the enemies of the sultan and are making
trouble in his territories… do not initiate enmity… a clever man knows these
times well, this is not the time of the Kshatriyas, it is the Kali age of the
yavanas.37

They advise Gangadas to marry his daughter to the Sultan, and wash
the Sultan’s feet in submission thus relinquishing his honour and pride and
accepting his suzerainty instead of challenging him by giving refuge to the
troublemakers.38 In short, the Sultan’s allies, warrior chieftains like Gangadas

36 Sreenivasan, ‘Drudges, Dancing Girls, Concubines, 136–161. Sreenivasan has discussed

the different and changing ways in which captured women were incorporated into
Rajput courts and households into the nineteenth century.
37 *391IV, 40.
38 *391IV, 40.
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 91

himself, counsel Gangadas to give up the older model of alliance politics for
the new sultanate polity. Marrying his daughter to the new overlord would
also imply giving up his own autonomy.
The tensions between the old and the new models, articulated in terms of
the crisis of the Kshatriya ideal of honour, emerge again at the end of the play.
When the battle between the sultan and Gangadas is at its height, some of
the garasiyas are killed by Muhammad Shah’s soldiers.39 The families of the
deceased men are desperate with rage; the sons of these brave warriors have
left the fort to fight the sultan while their devoted wives have walked into their
funeral pyres as the war trumpets sound in the background.40 Gangadas is
disappointed on hearing the news. He articulates in no uncertain terms that the
garasiyas were the cause of his rivalry with the sultan. He is upset that he has
not been able to save the lives of those who sought protection under him and
chides himself for not living up to his Chauhan lineage, which is well-known for
granting refuge to those who need it.41 He now forbids his officers from using
the services of the remaining garasiya in the battle against Sultan Muhammad;
it is his duty, he asserts as their protector, to keep them away from danger. The
surviving garasiyas, however, are eager to fight as they have pledged their
lives in gratitude to Gangadas. Despite these emotional exchanges, the death of
the garasiyas creates a sense of futility around the enmity between the sultan
and Gangadas, and has reestablished the partial superiority of the sultan. The
poet finally resolves the matter by bringing the play to a close and by shifting
the focus on to another field of competition: Muhammad Shah must leave the
battlefield because his other major rival, the sultan of Mandapa, is now about
to seize Ahmadabad with an army of a hundred thousand cavalry, two hundred
thousand foot soldiers, and a thousand elephants.42 Sultan Muhammad’s ally,
Virama, goes on to provide a justification for the action by pointing out that
the protection of one’s own territories should be a king’s foremost task.
A similar tension between alliance polilitcs and integration into the sultanate
is also expressed in the0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD. The sultan of Ahmadabad sends
an envoy to Mahipala, Mandalik’s father, complaining that Duda, the Gohil
chieftain who is his son’s father-in-law, is wreaking havoc within the sultanate
territories.43 The envoy warns the king about the Gohil and his associates and

39 *391 VIII, 67.

40 *391 VIII, 67–68.
41 *391 VIII, 68.
42 *391 VIII, 70.
43 9HODQNDUµ0Ɨ৆ঌDOƯND¶
92 In Praise of Kings

states that they would disregard their matrimonial ties with him in due course
as well.44 Mahipala reassures the envoy that he considers the sultan’s enemy
to be his enemy. Yet in reality he is troubled by the thought of fighting his
relative in support of the yavana, noting that a battle with the yavanas, who
had increased their strength owing to this Kali age, was not a happy thing.
Already the king of the yavanas had deprived several kings of their kingdoms.
However, the yavana king had shown no open enmity towards the royal family
of the yadavas (namely his own clan of Chudasama) and so he feels it is wise
not to voluntarily initiate a situation of hostility.45 His minister also counsels
him to the same effect:

That yavana king, who on the strength of his army of elephants and thousands
of horses had conquered the world, has courted your friendship. What greater
good and safety do you ask for? It would therefore be best for you to do what
is pleasing for him. On the other hand, if I were to recount the misdeeds of
Duda I am afraid that I would incur the displeasure of the prince. These chiefs
always seek shelter under you when they are attacked by the yavanas and yet
claim as their own the lands bordering your kingdom.46

Hearing the pragmatic advice given to his father, Mandalik rises to the
occasion and eventually overcomes his moral dilemma. He kills his father-
in-law in the interest of Chudasama authority in Saurashtra, as well as his
relationship with the more powerful sultan.
Tensions with rival claimants over resources in the region are also at play
in Mandalik’s encounters with Sangana, the king of the Western Ocean,
who defies the Chudasama claims of complete authority over Saurashtra.
At Mandalik’s anointment as the crown prince, the kings of the bordering
territories send gifts, accepting his supremacy and he suitably honours them
in turn.47 As we have seen, unlike the others who had accepted his supreme
position, Sangana disregards the news brought by the Chudasama envoy.
Mahipala, though angered, only smiles, but his son Mandalik pledges to fight
the insubordinate chief.48 The battle is described in some detail, at the end of
which the prince manages to break Sangan’s weapon and causes him to fall
from his horse. Despite the clear advantage he has over his enemy, Mandalik

44 9HODQNDUµ0Ɨ৆ঌDOƯND¶DQGMNC, III.47–51.
45 MNC,,,,,,DQG9HODQNDUµ0Ɨ৆ঌDOƯND¶
46 9HODQNDUµ0Ɨ৆ঌDOƯND¶DQGMNC, III.40, 49.
47 MNC, III, 10.
48 MNC, III, 13.
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 93

now spares his life ( MLYDQDGƗQDGDGƗPL, literally, ‘I grant you the boon of
life’),49 only collecting a tribute in the form of horses and gems.50 The tension
between the two rival claimants to authority in the region does not end here.
Sangana once again appears in the later part of the narrative, in which he not
only disregards the kindness Mandalik has shown him in sparing his life, but
also demands that the Chudasama chieftain submit to his authority.51 The
subsequent battle is described in even more riveting detail than the one prior.
The armies shower volleys of flaming arrows at one another, but Sangan’s
are easily diffused as if by a cold rain.52 Mandalik triumphs again, winning
large quantities of gold, silver, pearls, and jewels as well as horses and camels.
These spoils are distributed among subordinate kings, artisans, and bards.53
The narratives thus show an acute awareness of the region’s political
processes and realities. In this regard the poet depicts the multiple spheres
of rivalry and negotiations that the protagonists have to face YLViYLV the
Sultan, the garasiyas, the Gohil and tribal chieftains and the pirate chieftain
Sangan, as well as the tensions between the sultans of Gujarat and Malwa. In
these depictions we can discern the pressures to forge ties, and the struggles
to establish hierarchies that would have existed between the different players.
It is within these multiple spheres of rivalry that the Sanskrit poet is able to
construct an idealised Kshatriya persona for his Chauhana and Chudasama
patrons. Predictably, his protagonists are virtuous, brave, and just protectors
of those who seek shelter with them; they also belong to prestigious lineages.
All of these qualities later came to form the essence of a Rajput high culture.
Ultimately, the poet Gangadhara presents a nuanced picture of the kind of
political and social negotiations that his patrons may have been undergoing.
Despite their use of courtly-drama and epic-poem form, Gangadhara’s works
are a commentary on Gujarat’s history, and shift back and forth between the
universalised and timeless realm of kavya and the specificities of the region’s
contemporary politics.
Gangadhara provides no background for the political conflicts in the play
and the epic-poem or mahakavya. In the play, *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVD, he
also does not give an explanation of the role of the garasiyas, nor one for the
more long-term rivalry between the Gujarati and Malwa sultans. He is similarly

49 MNC, III, 23.

50 MNC, III, 22.
51 MNC, VIII.
52 MNC, IX, 10.
53 MNC, ,;DQG9HODQNDUµ0Ɨ৆ঌDOƯND¶
94 In Praise of Kings

opaque in 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD, providing no substantive detail regarding the

history of Mandalik’s relations with others in the region, including the sultan.
Gangadhara instead assumes his audience’s familiarity with these factors.
Thus, understanding these narratives essentially requires prior knowledge of
the region’s geography and politics. The events Gangadhara describes firmly
situate his narratives within their local contexts. His works thus establish
their patrons’ glory within their own social and political domains, rather than
facilitating its spread to other parts of the subcontinent. And, despite the use of
the different universalised idioms of kingship, neither Gangadas nor Mandalik
aspire to ‘the conquest of all directions’, or digvijaya, an essential element of
a typical Indic king’s aspirations to expand his realm. Their aspirations are
instead limited to protecting their sovereignty and status within their own
patrimonies; the conquest of the Sultan’s territories is hardly contemplated. The
merger of the dharmic norms of kingship with their localised manifestations
would help facilitate the process by which chieftains became more accepted
as ‘rajas’ or kings within the areas in which they sought supremacy.

Political Geography and Significance of Place

Gangadhara’s Sanskrit narratives strive to portray the intricate details of
the region’s political history, while also projecting his patrons as idealised
Kshatriyas; they display complex interactions between local and cosmopolitan
geographies, between real and Puranic topographies, and between local and
transregional geopolitics. Once again, through Sanskrit, Gangadhara seem to
be evoking both a local and cosmopolitan geography for his local audience.
One form of geographical knowledge that Gangadhara displays in his work
is that of local topography, particularly that of Champaner and its adjoining
hill, Pavakacala or Pavagadha. The *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND begins
with the sutradhara, the stage manager who traditionally recites the prologue,
extolling the virtues of this hill, which is the abode of Mahakali. It is also the
place that Lord Shiva visits after having left his snow-clad mountain in the
agony of separation from his beloved.

It [the hill] is the support of the weak… it is the place where the residents of
all three worlds find friendship… where the earth is pure and radiant, touched
by the soft breeze and the skies are bright and clear…54

54 *391, I, 1–2.
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 95

The virtuous people of Champaner live around this heavenly Pavakacala,

or ‘auspicious mountain’. Later in the play these poetic effusions merge with
the strategic requirement of the conflict. When, in the seventh act, the Sultan
is disheartened by his losses at the hands of Gangadas’s army, one of his
Rajput allies, Virama, presents him with a painted cloth, or patta, containing
a detailed map of the fort and its surroundings in order to facilitate their
movements through it. The source of this information is a treacherous Brahmin
who regularly visits the fort in order to receive the generous donations that
Bhamaba, Gangadas’s mother, makes to the priestly caste.
The map combines Puranic/sacred geography with exact topography. It
shows that on summit of the hill there is a Shiva temple made of gold and
silver. In the distance, between the east and north, we are told, there is a lake
named Ramanaganga built by Rama.55 The deep lake to the south has been
created by Sita and to the west of it is another lake created by Bhima named
Bhimagaya.56 To Bhimagaya’s west there is a large lake with white waters,
created by Gangadas; it is surrounded by temples dedicated to the deities
Ganesha, Durga, Dinkara, Ksetrapala, and the Jina.57 The clouds that are ever-
visible on the top of the hill are from the smoke of the sacrificial fires. The
fort is also dotted with the dwelling places of the other members of the royal
family; the unfurled victory flags are a reminder of the ongoing festivities.58
The place is prosperous beyond belief and replete with food, wealth, and wells.
The subordinate kings also live happily within this citadel that is forever
watched over by the gods. To the south of the king’s own palace are the stables
and living space for cows and other cattle. The goddess Mahakali is constantly
protecting Gangadas from the summit where she sports with the gods.59 To the
left of her temple is the temple of the desire-fulfilling Jareshavara.
Virama’s painted cloth and elaborate descriptions thus take the audience (and
the Sultan within the play) through the particulars of the hill fort’s geography,
and elevate them with references to Puranic mythology. The poet not only
describes the location of a specific palace, temple, or body of water, but also
makes a point of emphasising the prosperity that surrounds them; an important
consideration when reciting or performing the play before the audience of royals
that may have been attending the celebrations related to the goddess festival.

55 *391, VII, 7, 57.

56 *391, VII, 9–10, 57.
57 *391, VII, 11–12, 57.
58 *391, VII, 14, 57.
59 *391, VII, 30, 59.
96 In Praise of Kings

Thus, the Vijayanagara poet’s knowledge of local politics is matched by his

knowledge of local geography. The idealisation of his protagonists is matched
by the idealisation of the local landscape.
Another form of geography enters the narrative through the poet’s
imagination of various links that his patrons in the little kingdoms of Gujarat
have with other subcontinental rulers or polities. While Champaner was
an important actor within the politics of the emerging region of Gujarat, it
was much smaller and less powerful than other regional polities, such as
Malwa, Vijayanagara, or the kingdoms of the Deccan. Yet, in a particularly
interesting act of the play, the poet again appears to equate the little kingdom
of his Chauhan patrons to the wider network of regional polities that existed
in that period. Just before the poet introduces his audience to the real cause
of the rivalry between the raja and the sultan, he dedicates almost an entire
act to the former’s interaction with his courtiers within his palace interior. As
Gangadas sits on his throne in full courtly regalia, surrounded by musicians,
female attendants, and ministers, he receives his envoys, or dutas, who have
brought news from every direction. Each envoy has returned with detailed
reports after visiting the courts of the king of Simhaladesha, the Gajapati king
in the east, the king of Champaranya in the north, and the sultan of Delhi. They
bring news of utter political mayhem in these places, where treason and war
have undermined the rulers’ positions. Compared to these chaotic situations,
Gangadas’s kingdom in the west is seen as a haven of peace and prosperity.
Once again, the cosmopolitan political geography that is evoked is a mixture
of poetic conventions and political reality, possibly with a good dose of the
itinerant poet’s wondrous experiences thrown in, and is worth describing
in some detail. The fourth act of the play opens with Ranachanga, one of
Gangadas’s military commanders, entering the court after slaying the Sultan’s
commander, Naroj, and five thousand of his soldiers. His triumphant entry
into the court is followed by the arrival of the envoys, as if to emphasise the
vast reach of Gangadas’s rule. The envoys narrate their observations in great
detail, giving a distinct sense of the nature of each of the places described.
Thus, the messenger reporting from the city of the Simhala lord describes a
rather complex process by which precious gems are produced there: in this city,
there is a lake named mantharavahini in which there are lotuses of a number
of hues. When the king bathes in the lake alongside his wife, drops of water
splash into the flowers. 60 These drops of water, along with a number of other
factors, including the impact of the gem goddess, turn into solid gems of the

60 *391IV, 36.
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 97

colour of the lotus in which they were born: the red lotuses produce rubies,
blue ones produce sapphires, and the yellow flowers produce gold-coloured
gems; the drops which have solidified with two or three filaments bring forth
cat-eye gems. The courtiers are struck by this unusual phenomenon, but the
messenger reassures them that he is merely reporting what he has experienced
himself (SUDW\DN‫܈‬DPDQXEKnjWD) rather than from inference (DQXPƗQHQD), or
through the words of a loved one (ƗSWDYDFDQHQD).61
Next, the king Gangadas inquires about the events in the east. Here, reports
the messenger, the Lord of the Elephants, Gajapati, has been poisoned by
a minister with the intention of usurping the throne. He also describes in
some detail the preparatory rituals associated with the pleasures of the deity,
Lord Jagannatha (though these are, according to him, indeed beyond this
world or lokottarameva). The next messenger brings news from the north, in
Champaranya, where the wise king has gradually managed to increase the
size of his already large army.62 In this region, another kind of precious stone
seems to hold significance. This is the shaligrama stone, which is the black,
and usually spherical stone considered to be the aniconic form of Vishnu. The
next messenger reports on Delhi (‫ڲ‬KLOOƯSXUDP), where the sultans rule. The
line of the sultans is coming to an end, he informs the king. The continued
hand-to-hand fighting is causing their destruction, and the goddesses of death
(yoginis) are hovering there in groups eager to drink the enemy’s blood.63
After receiving animated reports from the three directions and Delhi, the
king wants to know about the happenings in the west. The messenger reports:

… hundreds of kings who have taken shelter under him [Gangadas], along with
their sons and grandsons, remain extremely satisfied and happy. Burning with
the desire of swallowing the JXUMDUDPD۬‫ڲ‬DOD at every occasion, mahammad
VXUDWUƗ۬D [Muhammad Sultan] bites his lip [in defeat].64

The Chauhan kingdom is thus presented as being equal, if not superior,

to a number of other important kingdoms in the subcontinent, including
Ahmadabad and Delhi.

61 *391IV, 36–37.
62 The messenger uses an interesting analogy here: he says that the king first gained control
over the source of the flow of the water and having freed this flow, he then managed
to acquire the ocean, meaning that with the help of a small army he was able to obtain
more soldiers, thus enlarging the size of his core army. *391, IV, 22, 38.
63 *391, IV, 26, 39. This could also be a reference to Delhi’s other name, Yoginipura.
64 *391, IV, 39.
98 In Praise of Kings

In the 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWDthe interplay between cosmopolitan and local

geography is played out distinctly in favour of the local. Mandalik is eulogised
as an ideal, almost godlike, being. His intelligence and knowledge far exceed
those of his teachers’ and his physical beauty surpasses even that of the gods.
He frolics with his queens in the gardens of spring and protects his subjects like
a brave warrior and benevolent father. These characteristics, and the manner in
which they are described, can be attributed universally to any royal protagonist
of a kavya composition. Yet the actual military and political achievements of
this fantastic and universalised king are restricted to the realm of the domestic
or local. Despite the repeated mention of him and his ancestors as the ‘destroyer
of the yavanas,’ Mandalik only conquers chieftains of the local lineages, like
the Gohils, the Jhalas or Sangana, the chieftain from coastal Saurashtra. It is
against these chieftains, who shared political space within Saurashtra with the
Chudasamas, that Mandalik conducts his military expeditions and gains ritual
submission. This prominence of the local within the universal becomes even
more obvious in the description by Mandalik’s minister of all the princesses
that he can potentially wed once he has been crowned king. The minister notes:

… the daughter of the king of simhaladvipa is a padmini, she has lotus-like eyes
… [but] she is of low birth65… the daughter of the karnata king is proficient
in playing the vina and in other musical arts, [she] is endowed with all the
auspicious bodily marks and has beautiful eyes [but] she is not appropriate
as she has a dark complexion66… the daughter of the king of madhyadesha
is proficient in painting [but] her thighs are thickly covered with hair67… the
daughter of the king of PDKƗUƗ‫ܒ܈‬UDis well dressed and has a cuckoo-like voice
(but) is much too clever and witty…68

The minister describes the princesses of Trilinga, Kalinga (Orissa),

Kanyakubja (Kanauj), Kamarupa (Assam), Gopachala (Gwalior), Medapata
(Mewar), and several other kingdoms all over the subcontinent in a similar
vein. The criticisms finally end when he comes to the daughter of the Jhala
chieftain, Bhima. She is not only beautiful, virtuous, and skilled in every art,
but also of noble lineage. This princess and her father are both mentioned
by name. We are also given details about Bhima’s capital and the chieftain’s
current whereabouts. The cosmopolitan poet thus claims a position for his

65 MNC, IV, 8.
66 MNC, IV, 9.
67 MNC, IV, 15.
68 MNC, IV, 19.
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 99

apparently ‘regional’ level protagonist within the wider political networks

of the subcontinent. In Gangadhara’s imagination, Mandalik obviously has
access to the daughters of all these different kings. The act of rejecting them
establishes his superiority over their fathers’ kingdoms. The choice of marrying
the Jhala princess, on the other hand, confirms his position within the local
political scenario.
The interplay between the local and the cosmopolitan is also evidenced by in
the intended and imagined audiences for these works. On the one hand, as I have
argued, the thickness of local details and implications in *D۪JDGƗVDSUƗSDYLOƗVD
and the 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD demand a local audience who will understand
them without need for further explanation. But Gangadhara brings to his local
patrons and audiences not only a vision of the wider political world but he also
imagines an audience that lies beyond the immediate one comprising the ‘entire
group of kings who has come to the shrine of Mahakali, to worship the goddess
in the autumn season.’69 The last act of the play begins with another travelling
poet, or vaitalika, singing the praises of the victorious Gangadas. He is joined
by the glory, or kirti, of the Chauhan king and the infamy, or apakirti, of the
Ahmadabad sultan, personified as two women; the first of the two being of
noble birth. It is noteworthy that noblewoman kirti speaks in Sanskrit, while
the vaitalika and apakirti use Prakrit and are therewith assigned a lower status
in the play. But the vaitalika’s ability to comprehend Sanskrit also allows him
to be the transmitter of Gangadhara’s tale in the language of the people.
The two women are introduced to each other by the vaitalika and soon
discover that they share a birthday, that is, they are both born on the day
that Muhammad Shah, with his mighty armies, was defeated by Gangadas.
Gangadas’s kirti and the Sultan’s apakirti are now eager to travel the world.
The bard, whom they consider their brother, has promised to take them from
‘country to country (GHĞDGHĞƗQWDUDP), island to island (GYƯSDGYƯSDQWDUDP),
pilgrimage to pilgrimage (WƯUWKDWƯUWKƗQWDUDP), city to city (SXUDSXUƗQWDUDP),
royal court to royal court (UƗMDVDEKƗUƗMDVEKƗQWDUDP), from one gathering of
noblemen to another (VDMMDQDVDEKƗVDMMDQDVDEKƗQWDUDP), forest to forest (vana
YDQƗQWDUDP)’70 and to any other place beyond these that they may wish to go
to. The poet thus imagines a world pervaded by the story of Gangadas’s victory
and the Sultan’s loss. In bringing the vaitalika together with the personified
forms of glory and infamy, he also brings about the merger of the written with
the oral. Gangadhara thus hopes for the spread of his written tale through the

69 *391 I, 4.
70 *391 IX, 73.
100 In Praise of Kings

oral version that the bard, or vaitalika, will sing on his travels along with his
two imaginary sisters. After all it is through the vaitalika that the Vijayanagara
king Mallikarjuna learns about Gangadhara’s travels to Champaner, and
Gangadas’s wealth and generosity.
Thus both in the *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND and 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD,
the Sanskrit poet imagines multiple geographies. However, whether it is the
topography or the wider political networks outside and within Gujarat, the king
and his kingdom are primarily situated within their local contexts. And so while
universal values of kingship are evoked, in the poet’s imagined geography,
they are woven into and reconfigured by the ‘place’ to which they belong.

Conclusion
The foregoing discussions show how the poet Gangadhara represented his
regional patrons from Champaner and Junagadh in his Sanskrit compositions.
In both the *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND and 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD, the
poet projects his patrons as universalised Kshatriya kings and yet he situates
them within their very localised political and geographical context. From this
combination of cosmopolitan idiom and local reality emerges a rhetoric of
kingship that appears to have been created for the local milieu of immediate
rivals and audiances. The image of the morally superior Kshatriya king makes
for an effective foil against the yavana sultan as well as against those regional
rival Kshatriya chieftains who may have chosen to support him. Gangadas and
Mandalika’s situation as the most successful kings within their local political
scenario in turn establishes their moral and political superiority.
It can also be suggested, therefore, that Gangadhara’s compositions belong
to the body of ‘regional’ Sanskrit texts that had an immense significance
despite the emergence of the regional vernaculars. In Gujarat, as the existence
of Udayaraja’s 5ƗMDYLQRGD discussed in the next chapter, demonstrates,
Sanskrit was also patronised by Sultan Mahmud Begada (and his predecessor
Muhammad, whose court Gangadhara may have travelled to), despite the
growing significance of Persian and Gujari as the languages of the regional
court. As Yigal Bronner and David Shulman have suggested for another
context,71 not only did such texts often use a form of Sanskrit that was

71 Bronner and Shulman, ‘A Cloud Turned Goose,’ 1–30. Recently, Chitralekha Zutshi
has made a similar argument about Persian in the regional context. She argues for the
vernacularity of Persian in historical Kashmiri narratives which, despite using the
 Gangadhara’s Oeuvre 101

modified by the grammar of the regional language but they were also shaped
by the region’s geography and historical specificities. As works that were
firmly set in their local surroundings, the *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND
and 0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD would have established their patrons’ glory within
their own social and political domains rather than spreading their fame far and
wide. In this regard, these narratives can be viewed as carrying the aspiration
of regional elites to reinforce their political and moral values within the fluid
politics of the region. For their composer, Gangadhara, an itinerant poet
originally hailing from Vijayanagara, creating such works must also have
afforded the possibility of traversing several domains through which he could
display the versatility of his poetic skills.
With Ahmad Shah’s reign which began in 1411, the sultanate’s rule was
firmly established in Gujarat. Urban centres like Cambay and other port
towns continued to flourish under the sultans, while Ahmadabad, the capital
founded by Ahmad Shah, also emerged as an important new city in this period.
The sultans continued to face challenges at the hands of the local hereditary
chieftains and rival sultanates: 0LU¶ƗWL $‫ۊ‬PDGƯ mentions that Ahmad’s
successor Sultan Muhammad Shah was also forced to march against Idar,
Bakhda, and Champaner, while his son and successor Qutb al-Din successfully
overpowered the sultan of neighbouring Malwa.72 But by the mid fifteenth-
century the Gujarat sultans had developed a reputation for prosperity, piety, and
the ability to harness military resources and emerged as the most prominent
political presence in north India.
The regional sultans of Gujarat simultaneously emerged as great patrons
of language and learning during this time. As pious Sunni Muslims, they
encouraged the presence of ‘ulama in the region. Unlike the rulers of many
of the regional sultanates, the Muzzaffarid sultans were recent converts to
Islam and thus all the more anxious to prove their orthodox credentials.73
The pacification of Gujarat also involved sending ‘ulama to different parts of
the region, and several Sunni ‘ulama also served administrative and judicial
functions. In addition to the promotion of Sunni Islam, Gujarat under the sultans
also saw the migration of a number of Sufi orders into the region. Members
of Sufi orders were actively involved in the politics of the time but were also
prolific writers and scholars. As the sultans’ reputation for patronage grew,

cosmopolitan language, were explicitly concerned with specific space and place. See
Zutshi, Kashmir's Contested Pasts.
72 Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ trans., 41–42.
73 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 204.
102 In Praise of Kings

scholars from different parts of the Islamic world chose to migrate and settle in
Gujarat, consequently creating a vibrant intellectual atmosphere, particularly
in the urban areas. Sultan Ahmad himself was the author of a collection of
Persian verse; he also managed to gain the blessings for his newly founded
city of Ahmadabad from Burhan al-Din Qutb Alam (the pole of the world), the
Bukhari Sufi, by composing a qasida, or ode, in praise of the spiritual master.74
While Persian and the regional language Gujari remained the primary
public and courtly languages for the regional sultans, a multilingual literary
landscape emerged in Gujarat during the fifteenth century. This multilingual
landscape was what made it possible for the local courts, such as the ones at
Idar, Champaner, and Junagadh, to emerge as patrons in their own right, albeit
not on the same scale as the sultans. Yet they were able sponsor the production
of texts that allowed them to represent their political ideals and positions to suit
their desires for social and political mobility. These values, as we have seen
in the case of Ranmal and the chieftains of Champaner and Junagadh, drew
from a reservoir of rhetorical resources, combining the elements of classical
‘Khastriya-hood’ and the more fluid warrior ethos that was represented in
the oral traditions. Still, patronage of panegyrics that had grand valences in
addition to narrower, geographically specific qualities, would have to find a
way to coexist with the discourses that sultanates were weaving about their own
aspirations. It is to the sultanate’s connection with Indic kingship traditions
and the classical language of Sanskrit that we turn in the next chapter.

74 Khan, 0LU¶ƗWL$‫ۊ‬PDGƯ6XSSOHPHQW25.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 103

5ƗMDYLQRGD
The Sultan as Indic King

Conventionally, Indic traditions considered the king and the deity homologous,
whereby the king shares in the god’s divinity as the earthly lord. In that
respect, the following passages equating a king and the Puranic diety Vishnu
are not particularly unusual; they follow the pattern of many descriptions of
pre-modern Indic sovereigns composed in Sanskrit:

To the sound of drums and anklets, doe-eyed beauties enter the place of
musical performance.1
Erasing the darkness with their shining ornaments,
Women holding strings of evening lamps, offer songs of devotion to the king.2
The king, seated on the golden throne appears in the likeness of Vishnu.3

These short passages, however, are not from a longer description of an Indic
monarch. They are from a Sanskrit epic poem written during the fifteenth
century about the Muslim sultan, Mahmud Begada (r. 1459–1511), who ruled
over the region of Gujarat, the most prosperous and powerful of the regional
sultanates at the time, for fifty-two years. This is the 5ƗMDYLQRGD, ‘pleasure of
the king’, also referred to as the ĝUƯPDKDPnjGDVXUDWUƗ۬DFDULWD, ‘life of ‘Sultan
Mahmud’, composed sometime in the mid-fifteenth century by a poet named
Udayaraja. Contradicting the conventionally held view that the Sultan was a
pious Muslim monarch, this biography, an epic poem or mahakavya in Sanskrit,

1 Udayaraja, 5ƗMDYLQRGDPDKƗNƗY\DP, V, 1. Henceforth, 5ƗMDYLQRGD. Also see Shelat

and Qureshi, 0DKƗNDYL8GD\DUƗMD9LUDFLWDۨ5ƗMDYLQRGDPDKƗNƗY\DP.
2 5ƗMDYLQRGD V.5.
3 5ƗMDYLQRGD V.6.
104 In Praise of Kings

presents him as a paramount or universal ruler with links to a prestigious solar

dynasty, or suryavamsha, a link traditionally claimed by the Kshatriya kings
of the subcontinent.
By the end of the fifteenth-century, Sultan Mahmud Begada’s reputation
appears to have been well-established in and around his domains. A variety of
sources document stories of his greatness as the most powerful of the rulers of
the regional sultanate of Gujarat. His military achievements and administrative
measures to bring the local chieftains under control are documented extensively
in the Persian writings from the region. These accounts speak of Mahmud
Shah’s continuous military campaigns to subjugate the ruling chieftains as
well as the ever-rebellious nobility, which, in Gujarat, included men of diverse
ethnic origins. Sikandar Manjhu’s 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ notes, ‘May it not remain
secret that this Sultan was the best of the Gujarat sultans as a ruler, as a warrior,
and a dispenser of justice.’4 Superlative praise for Mahmud’s many aptitudes is
found in earlier accounts of his reign such as Abd-ul Karim Hamdani’s 7Ɨ¶UƯNK
L0D‫ۊ‬PnjG6KƗKƯ, composed in the second half of the fifteenth century, as well
as in later works including the 7Ɨ¶UƯNKL)LULVKWƗ, in which he is depicted as
both militarily successful and as a wise, just, and pious ruler.5
In these Persian works, Sultan Mahmud is represented as particularly
dedicated to the Islamic faith and in favour of the Sufi saint Shah Alam, who

4 Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯtrans., 42. Mahmud was also associated with fabulous

dietary and sexual habits. He was known to consume enormous quantities of food;
Sikandar writes that in addition to his regular meal, which itself was huge, he would
eat five seers of roasted rice. The Sultan would also ask for two plates full of samosas
to be kept on either side of his bed, so he could eat some when he woke from his sleep.
This would happen a few times each night. In the morning, after performing his prayers,
he would drink a cup of honey, a cup of ghee (clarified butter), and eat a hundred and
fifty plantains. He would often remark: ‘Oh Almighty, who would have fed Mahmud,
had you not granted him the throne.’ His sexual appetite was similarly voracious: after
cohabiting with several women, he would only be satisfied with one particular tall and
young Abyssinian lady. This summary is based on Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ trans.,
42 and the Hindi translation of the work. For Hindi, see, Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ,
Hindi trans., 75.
5 Hamdani was originally from the Deccan but settled in Gujarat for some years during
Begada’s reign. See Mahamud, ‘Introduction’ to 7Ɨ¶UƯNKL0D‫ۊ‬PnjG6KƗKƯ, i–xi and
Firishta, History of the Rise of Mahomedan Power, Vol. 4, 27–47. Mahmud, however,
only finds passing mention in the sixteenth-century text, the 7ƗUƯNKLVDOƗ‫ܒ‬ƯQL*XMDUƗW
by Mahmud Bukhari, which focuses mainly on Ahmad Shah and Bahadur Shah. See
Tirmizi, ‘Tarikh-i-Salatin-i-Gujarat,’ 41.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 105

had become very influential in the region during this period.6 The Persian
sources also suggest Sultan Mahmud’s personal piety pervaded his political
actions: the conquest of Junagadh, for instance, is recorded as having been
strongly motivated by religion rather than by the desire for mere political and
economic gains. Even after Junagadh’s ruler offered submission, the Sultan
is said to have spared his life only on the condition that he convert to Islam.7
When he was advised by his nobles to launch an attack on the rival kingdom
of Malwa, its ruler, following the death of its ruler, Sultan Mahmud Khalji,
in c. 1469, Sultan Mahmud Begada is said to have responded, ‘To desire the
country of a Muslim brother, whether he be dead or alive, is inappropriate.’8 In
these stories, Mahmud is shown to have merged military might and religious
devotion with political shrewdness. These facets of his character are mutually
reinforcing, and so the 5ƗMDYLQRGD¶Vportrayal him as an Indic king necessarily
deviates quite sharply from those depictions in the Persian traditions.
Prior to the establishment of Mahmud’s reign, as the Muzaffarid sultans
were consolidating their rule in the region, literary works from the smaller
local courts portrayed their patrons’ complex social and political aspirations
in a period shaped by ambiguous sovereignties.9 By the second half of the
fifteenth century, however, the regional sultanate’s rule had been firmly
established. Thus, a close reading of a narrative such as 5ƗMDYLQRGD, wherein
a Muslim sultan chose to mobilise pre-existing notions of political power in
order to fashion his own rule, gives us a striking picture of the diverse ways in
which kingship was being articulated and represented in the regional context.
5ƗMDYLQRGD also points to the continuing political utility of Sanskrit in the
fifteenth century, even for a king firmly established and represented in other
literary traditions popular in the region.10

6 Sikandar recounts a number of incidents when the saint performed miracles to protect
the Sultan from enemies’ attacks. Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, trans., 36–38.
7 Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, trans., 69. Also Ahmad, 0LU¶ƗWL$‫ۊ‬PDGƯ, trans., 47.
8 Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, Hindi trans., 97.
9 For details on such portrayals see chapters 2 and 3 in this monograph.
10 In the context of Vijayanagara, also a fifteenth-century kingdom, Philip Wagoner
proposes a theoretical model of ‘Islamisation’, which involved the indigenous political
elite of a region participating in the more ‘universal’ culture in order to enhance their
prestige. According to Wagoner, this was done primarily through the adoption of the
secular rather than the religious culture of Islam and did not necessarily occur at the
expense of the indigenous cultural traditions. This was articulated in the Vijayanagara
kingdom through the adoption of a certain courtly etiquette, particularly in the courtly
dress and headgear that was popular all over the wider Islamic world. It was similarly
106 In Praise of Kings

The Regional Imperium, 1411–1511

Sultan Mahmud Begada, born Fateh Khan, ascended to the throne of
Ahmadabad in 1459, marking the beginning of what contemporary and
modern historians alike identify as the pinnacle of the regional sultanate’s
reign in Gujarat. By the end of his grandfather Ahmad Shah’s rule, the
Muzaffarid sultans’ presence had been accepted in most parts of the region,
as is attested by the numerous public inscriptions found all over Gujarat. As
the early decades of the fifteenth century unfolded, the Muzaffarid sultans
also emerged as the most prosperous and powerful of the regional rulers in
the subcontinent, superseding rival kingdoms in north India and the Deccan
in the south. While skirmishes with the local chieftains continued – Ahmad
Shah and his immediate successors continued to face resistance from the fort
kingdoms that surrounded the heartland – the sultans had initiated military
and administrative measures that cemented a climate of stability in the region.
Simultaneously, the sultans emerged as great cultural patrons, also opening up
a new era of regional literary, architectural, and religious productions. These
perhaps paradoxical but simultaneous aspects of their dispensation found

articulated through the adoption of the title ‘KLۨGnjUƗ\DVXUDWUƗ۬D’ or ‘sultan among/

of Hindu kings.’ For Wagoner, the adoption of this title did not indicate a merely
homologous connection with the Sanskrit or Telugu equivalent for king but signified a
willingness on the part of the Vijayanagara ruler to participate in the political discourse
of the Islamicate civilisation. The ruler could thus be considered a ‘sultan’ not solely
in terms of political standing, but in actual form and substance. Wagoner finds that
the kingdom of Vijayanagara, traditionally viewed by historians as the bastion of high
‘Hindu’ culture, was, in fact closely connected in its material and courtly cultures
to the wider Islamic world. See Wagoner, ‘Sultan among the Hindu Kings,’ 851–80.
Richard Eaton goes further to compare the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagara to the
Islamicate Bahamani Kingdom. Both, he demonstrates, were successor states of the
Delhi sultanate. Consequently, their political ideologies appear similar as they had a
shared history of association and separation from Delhi and were influenced deeply by
the ideology propagated by the ‘Mirror of kings’ literature introduced in India through
Turkish rule. See Eaton, ‘The Articulation of Islamic Space in the Medieval Deccan,’
159–75. The similarities between the Islamicate Bahamani Kingdom and the Hindu
kingdom of Vijayanagara thus reflect the dialogic, rather than purely confrontational,
relationship of political Islam with indigenous political traditions, right from the earliest
years of the Delhi sultanate. They also illustrate how the Islamicate cultural practices
that emerged in the regional kingdoms provided another form of cosmopolitanism,
which was to be adopted, just like Sanskrit, to assert power and authority. A similar
dialogic relationship can be asserted in Mahmud Begada and the Muzaffarid’s drawing
on Indic vocabularies of kingship.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 107

culmination in Sultan Mahmud’s fifty-two-year reign, which followed Muzaffar

Shah’s establishment of the independent sultanate nearly sixty years earlier.
In the century that followed Ahmad Shah’s rule, from its inception in 1411
to the end of Sultan Mahmud Begada’s reign in 1511, the Muzaffarid sultans
gained control of considerable military and material resources. While the
Delhi sultanate remained powerful in name, by the fifteenth century, Delhi
had been reduced to a provincial kingdom. In contrast, the regional kingdoms,
particularly Gujarat and the Deccan, surpassed Delhi in military strength
and economic resources. The sultans of Gujarat were able to link the diverse
geographical areas and political nodes of the region and develop a culture
nurturing new literary and architectural forms. They also facilitated more
extensive trading networks than ever before.11 In the years between 1411 and
1511 the Muzaffarid sultans held sway over the most successful of regional
kingdoms, whose prosperity and reputation would far outlast its existence.
The Muzzafarid sultanate’s success in the region was marked by the bringing
together of a number of local chieftains under the new regime, particularly
those in control of significant trade routes and forts such as Idar, Champaner,
and Junagdh under the new regime. Sultan Mahmud defeated the Chudasama
chieftain, Raja Mandalik of Junagadh, in a decisive victory in 1472. Several
attempts by his predecessors to subjugate Mandalik prior to this had resulted
only in limited success. Mahmud Begada had harnessed a vast amount of
financial and military resources in order to achieve his victory, as the Raja
was well-protected by the mountainous and forested lands surrounding his
fort kingdom. Mandalik was eventually overpowered; he accepted Islam and
was granted the title of Khan Jahan, according to the Persian histories of the
sultanate.12 The Chauhan kingdom of Champaner was also taken over by
Mahmud some eleven years after the conquest of Junagadh, in c. 1483. As in
the previous years, the Sultan’s relationship with Champaner was closely tied
up in regional rivalries with the sultans of Malwa. Since this hill kingdom lay
on the strategic borders of both their domains, the conquest of Champaner
marked an important victory against the rulers of Malwa as well. Mahmud
established the city of Muhamammadabad at the base of Pavagadh Hill to

11 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 185.

12 This tale is quite different from the one of the virtuous and brave Kshatriya king of the
0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOƯNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWDcomposed only a few years earlier (Chapter 3). Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL
6LNDQGDUƯ, trans., 57. Mandalik is said to have died in Ahmadabad. Sikandar also reports
that Mandalik, on moving to the capital of the sultans, was deeply influenced by the
spiritual powers of the saint Shah Alam.
108 In Praise of Kings

commemorate his success. It was believed, Sikandar reports, that it was the
conquest of these two forts, which his predecessors had struggled to subdue,
that earned Mahmud the curious epithet of ‘Begada’ or ‘Begadha’; be in Gujarati
means two and gadh refers to fort.13 But Junagadh and Champaner were not
the only chieftaincies that Mahmud conquered. He also launched successful
campaigns against the chieftains in the coastal areas of Diu and Jagat, parts
of Sindh and Kachchh. Additionally, he was also closely involved in the wider
politics of the region, aiding or fighting kingdoms in the Deccan, Malwa, and
southern Rajasthan.14
Mahmud’s grandfather, Ahmad Shah, had introduced a number of
administrative and military innovations that enabled the sultans to become the
most generous and powerful employers of military manpower in the region,
thus ensuring a solid power base.15 He introduced a regular system of payment
for his soldiers in which half their salary was to be paid out as a land grant,
or jagir, and the other half was to be given to them in cash, ensuring their
own security as well as their loyalty to the crown.16 Ahmad also initiated the
process of incorporating the local chieftains into the administration through
the vanta, or ‘part’, system of collecting revenues from directly administered
territories.17 The vanta was to be one-fourth of the territories that the chieftain
had formerly controlled. The other three-fourths, assigned the title tulput, were
acknowledged as ‘property of the king’.18 The chieftains – or zamindars, as

13 This explanation for Sultan Mahmud’s name comes from Sikandar Manjhu. Sikandar
also mentions another, and more fantastic, belief about the title that was widespread
when he was writing during the seventeenth century. In Gujarati, notes Sikandar, the
term referred to a bullock whose horns stretch horizontally forward ‘in the manner of a
person extending his arms to embrace another’; the Sultan’s moustache was so thick and
long, it was said, that it resembled such a bullock’s horns. Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ,
trans., 42. Ali Muhammad Khan, the author of the 0LUƗWL$KPDGƯalso mentions these
legends related to the Sultan but his account is derived, as he himself acknowledges,
from Sikandar’s work. See his0LU¶ƗWL$‫ۊ‬PDGƯ, 45.
14 For details of Mahmud’s conquests, see Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ trans., 41–89.
15 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 73.
16 Khan, 0LU¶ƗWL$‫ۊ‬PDGƯ, 39. Khan writes: ‘If the complete salary is paid in cash, there will
not remain any surplus with him [the soldier]. A soldier will be without any means. He
will become careless in his defence of the kingdom. If half out of the revenue produce
is assigned to him as salary, he will derive benefit in the shape of grass, fuel, etc. from
that mahal … Half in cash will be conveyed to him every month without delay and
waiting so that he may remain present wherever he may be for receiving it.’
17 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 193.
18 Forbes, 5ƗV0ƗOƗvol. 2, 270.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 109

they were known in the Persian writings – were responsible for the protection
of their own villages and to make themselves available for the military service
of the king when so required.19 Those landowners who were able to retain
control over their patrimonies, or gras, were usually forced to pay an annual
tribute to the sultans. The sultans did not usually interfere with the internal
administration of these territories, and the landlords were allowed to collect
revenues from their lands.
Ahmad Shah’s military and administrative reforms were consolidated by
his son and successor, Sultan Muhammad II. It was on these foundations laid
by his grandfather and father that Mahmud Shah Begada was able to build his
successful reign. Mahmud encouraged courtiers to administer the territories
granted to them as military assignments where they were expected to raise
troops. Alternatively, a paid official would be stationed at the principal town
or fort to administer it and collect revenues, with the support of troops from
Ahmadabad.20 This would ensure successful collection of revenues, at least
in the areas in which the traditional chieftains had been alienated from their
lands and integrated into the wider system of government. Mahmud introduced
a measure of assigning the jagirs of the nobles and soldiers who were slain in
battle, to their sons; if there were no sons, half the property was to be assigned
to the daughters. In the absence of a daughter, settlements were to be made
with the dependents of the deceased.21 As with the measure of paying soldiers
partly in cash and partly by the assignment of a jagir, this move was intended
to reduce any dissatisfaction towards the ruler or prevent the noble from
developing roots in the land. By the mid-fifteenth century, the administrative
and military innovations the sultans introduced, along with the facilitation of
what historian Samira Sheikh has called the ‘religious marketplace’, much of
Gujarat had been settled and its diverse environmental and social elements
combined into what emerged as the most prosperous and powerful kingdom
with a distinct regional character.
From the inception of their reign, the sultans had patronised Arabic and
Persian, consciously linking themselves to a wider cosmopolitan literary world
within and beyond the subcontinent, where other Indo-Islamic sultanates were
also becoming prominent.22 Sufis, and other Muslim intellectuals and scholars,

19 Forbes, 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, vol. 2, 270–71.

20 Sheikh, Forging a Region, 194.
21 Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, trans., 45.
22 Alam et al note that the regional sultanates that followed the dismantling of the Delhi
Sultanate represented a kind of ‘apogee’ of Indo-Persian culture. Gujarat and Deccan’s
110 In Praise of Kings

migrated to the region, leading to the formation of a diverse intellectual

community that composed works in Persian, Arabic, and Gujari, a regional
language that gained prominence under the sultanate rule.23 Not only did the
sultans, styling themselves as pious Sunni rulers, offer their support to Sufis
and religious scholars, but they also established cities and institutions that
further enabled urban settlement and literary production during the fifteenth
century.24 As relatively recent converts to Islam, the sultans were eager to gain
legitimacy from their association with these men of religion and competed with
their extra-regional rivals to attract them to their courts.
However, the Muzaffarid dispensation also facilitated the multilingual
and diverse society that was Gujarat. This was a region where overlapping
linguistic spheres had existed from the Chaulukya period and these linguistic
developments continued to flourish and expand during the fifteenth century.
Devotional poets such as Narasimha Maheta composed his works in what is
considered the earliest form of modern Gujarati; the Jains, still prominent in the
region, continued to produce works in Apabhramsa and Sanskrit; and Sanskrit
was also used extensively in the composition of the newly emerging genre of
place- and caste-related Puranas.25 Various performative and spoken dialects
intelligible to specific religious groups, particularly mercantile communities
such as Khoja Ismailis or different Vaishnava sects, were also in use during
this time. The landscape of inscriptions which were extensively produced
during this period reveals a great multiplicity in language use, including
Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, and Gujarati. Along with Charani-style productions,
Sanskrit works were patronised by the emerging Rajput courts, so Gujarat and
its various local power centres would have become quite attractive to scholars
and poets looking for patronage for their art. Ultimately, however, it was the
regional sultans who emerged as the greatest patrons in the region.

links to the Indian Ocean networks facilitated the arrival of new influences from Iran
through merchants, soldiers, and statesmen who settled in these regions. The competition
between these sultanates also led to a diversification of the Indo-Persian culture,
compared to its rather monolithic expression under the Delhi sultans and the Mughals,
according to the authors. See Alam, et al, 7KH0DNLQJRI,QGR3HUVLDQ&XOWXUH, 25.
23 For surveys of Gujari language and literature, see Dar, ‘Gujarat’s Contribution to Gujari
DQG8UGX¶±1D\DNµ*XMDUƯ%KƗVKƗ±3DWKDNµ*XMDUL7KH*RG*LYHQ
Great Gift to the World,’ 98–104.
24 For a detailed study of the migration of Muslim saints and scholars to Gujarat during
the fifteenth century, see Balachandran, ‘Texts, Tombs and Memory’.
25 Majmudar, Cultural History of Gujarat, 342.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 111

The Sultans in Sanskrit Inscriptions

The records of Sanskrit inscriptions from north India, and particularly from
Gujarat, testify to the fact that the language continued to be in use after
the establishment of Muslim rule in India.26 Non-Muslim merchants, their
wives, officials, and often even Muslim nobles, chose to use Sanskrit in their
inscriptions. The epigraphic traditions of Gujarat had incorporated the Muslim
rulers from the thirteenth century onwards. In numerous Sanskrit epigraphs
from the time of the Delhi sultanate, Muslim rulers were mentioned with
titles and adjectives that were part of the same pool of idiomatic resources that
authors of poems and prashastis used.27 Most commonly, the Perso-Arabic
title ‘sultan’ was also modified to the Sanskritised, VXUDWUƗ۬D, thus giving
it the literal meaning ‘savior of the gods’. In Gujarat, numerous inscriptions
recording the deeds of locally powerful elites note the reign of the Delhi and
Gujarati sultans by using such titles. Not only do these Sanskritise the names
of the officials and rulers but they also use symbols, similes, and motifs that
were common in other Sanskrit inscriptions, thus incorporating the new
forms of authority into the ideological and literary conventions of the textual
productions of the times.28
Take, for instance, an early Jain inscription in the Stambhan–Parshvanatha
temple at Cambay or Khambhat during Khalji rule, dated c. 1301–10, which
memorialises the construction of the temple dedicated to the Jain spiritual
teacher, or tirthankara, Ajitadeva, by a merchant named Sah Jesal. The record
mentions that the donation was made in ‘the victorious reign of Alp Khan’
(ĞUƯDOSDNKƗQDYLMD\DUƗM\H), the governor of Anhilvada and the Delhi sultan,
‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji. The Sultan’s name and title are also Sanskritised as ‘ĞUL
DOƗYDGƯQDVXUDWUƗ۬D’ and he is described, according to the coventions of the
genre, as ‘the one whose radiance pervades the earth’ (SUDWƗSƗNUƗQWDEKnjWDOD).29
Similarly, in a memorial stone from Junagadh district, the Sanskritised name
of the Tughluq official, Malik Muhammad Sadik (Skt. PƗPDOLNĞUƯPDGVDGƯN)
precedes that of the local Chudasama chieftain, a certain Mahipaladeva.30
Sanskrit and Sanskritised terminology seems to have been adopted by the

26 See, for instance, Prasad, Sanskrit Inscriptions of the Delhi Sultanate, and
Chattopadhyaya, Representing the Other?, 48–60.
27 Chattopadhyaya, Representing the Other?, 48–60.
28 Chattopadhyaya, Representing the Other?, 50–51.
29 Shastri, Historical Inscriptions, 4, no.1, 3–4.
30 Shastri, Historical Inscriptions 4, no.3, 9–10.
112 In Praise of Kings

Delhi sultanate officials based in Gujarat in their inscriptions as well. The

Sanskrit portion of a bilingual inscription from Petlad records the grant of 20
kubhas of land and repairs of a step-well during the ‘victorious reign’ of Sultan
Ghiyas al-Din Tughluq (Skt. JD\ƗVDGƯQD), the ‘king among kings who ruled
in Yoginipura (Delhi)’.31 The grant had been sanctioned by a sultanate official
at Anhilvada and locally executed by a certain Badr al-Din Abbuk Ahmad
Koh, whose name was also inscribed in a Sanskriticised form on the epigraph.
Such inscriptions that incorporate the Delhi sultanate rulers and officials in
Sanskriticised forms can be found all over Gujarat.
By the early fifteenth century, the rise of the new regional sultanate, that
of the Muzaffarids, was also reflected in the epigraphs of Gujarat. Of the 300
inscriptions that have survived and been published from Muzaffar Shah I’s
reign, 50 are in Sanskrit.32 A few of these also form a part of the bilingual
inscriptions that are found in a small but significant number on civic structures
all over the region.33 From the earliest part of their reign, the Muzaffarid sultans
were incorporated in the same ways that their predecessors from Delhi had
been: through the Sanskritisation of their names and lineages. For example,
the Sanskrit portion of a bilingual Persian–Sanskrit inscription from Veraval
recording the building of a city wall mentions the donor, Mahamalik Phajaral
Ahamed (Malik Fazl allah Ahmad Abu Raja in Persian), and the reigning
sultan, Muzaffar Shah, in Sanskritised form. Another inscription, dated 1457,
mentions the victorious reign and title of then-ruler Qutb al-Din Ahmad I (r.
1451–1458) in Sanskritised form (ĞUƯNXWDEDGƯQDYLMD\DUƗM\H).34
The era of Sultan Mahmud’s reign, and a few decades that immediately
followed, yield not only brief inscriptions on civic structures, such as those
mentioned above, but also a noteworthy number of relatively long Sanskrit
incriptions in honour of major building projects. Many of these lengthier
inscriptions can be dated to after the composition of the 5ƗMDYLQRGD, the
Sanskrit epic-poem discussed in the following pages. These reflect the

31 Shastri, Historical Inscriptions 4, no.2, 7–8. In Sanskrit: \RJL۬LSXUƗGKL‫ܒ܈‬KD

PDKƗUƗMƗGKLUƗMDĞUƯPDWVXUDWUƗ۬DĞUƯJD\ƗVDGƯQDYLMD\DUƗM\p.
32 Sheikh, ‘Languages of Public Piety’, 189.
33 Sheikh, ‘Languages of Public Piety,’ 189. Sheikh finds that such bilingual inscriptions
in Persian/Arabic and Sanskrit or Persian and Gujarati, were attached to civic structures
such as walls or forts and water structures, especially step-wells.
34 This inscription, which documented the construction of iron gates, was patronised by
sultanate officials, but other Sanskrit inscriptions from this time, and from the reign
of Mahmud Begada as well, were commissioned by civilians.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 113

conventional use of Sanskritised names for the sultan and also display a degree
of sectarian fluidity in their invocation of Puranic deities. One such inscription
from 1497 records the building of a step-well (vavi), mosque (masita), and a
mausoleum (hajira) near the sultanate capital of Champaner-Mohammadabad
by a person named Sandal Sultani.35 The Sanskrit is intermixed with Old
Gujarati and Perso-Arabic phrases. Strikingly, the contents invoke the Puranic
deities Ganesha and Sharada. The inscription also pays respects to Kali, the
presiding goddess of Champaner, whose curse, it notes, will befall anyone who
infringes on the terms of the grant. Another inscription in Sanskrit and Arabic
from 1499 records the donation of a lavish step-well by a female courtier, Bai
Harir.36 The Sanskrit portion opens with invocations to the Creator (‫ܒ܈܀܈‬LNDUWƗ),
Varuna, ‘the lord of the waters’, and the supreme goddess (ĞDNWƯҲNXQGDOƯOƯQƯ).
The very first inscription from the Gujarat sultanate that offers information
about Mahmud Begada’s conquests and deeds is also in Sanskrit.37 Closer in
time to the 5ƗMDYLQRGD, the Dohad inscription from 1488 is believed to have
been composed by the same author, Udayaraja, and indeed its twenty-six lines
mirror the Sultan’s Sanskrit biography.38 This inscription, commissioned by
the courtier ‘Imad al-Mulk, and recording the construction of the Dahod
(Dadhipadra, Dohad) fort, is a historical one describing the deeds and
genealogy of the reigning sultan. The sheer number of Sanskrit inscriptions
during the fifteenth century points to the continued value of the language during
this period. While Persian was the predominant language of inscriptions, non-
Muslims and Muslims, including sultanate officials, considered it important to
record their donations and make proclamations in the vocabulary and idioms
offered by cosmopolitan Sanskrit. On the one hand, this phenomenon was
an extension of the convention of Sanskrit inscriptions incorporating rulers,
their titles, and their lineages. But on the other, their fluid deployment of Old
Gujarati and Perso-Arabic words, and the invocation of locally popular deities,
signal that multilingual, Sanskrit-heavy inscriptions had a role to play in the
administration and control of a region in flux.

35 6RQDZDQHµ0Ɨ৆ঌDYƯ6WHSZHOO,QVFULSWLRQDW&ƗPSƗQHUD¶±
36 For the Sanskrit portion, see Abbot, ‘Bai Harir’s Inscription at Ahmadabad,’ 297–300,
and Shastri, Historical Inscriptions 4, no.21, 53–54. For Arabic see Blochmann, ‘Eight
Arabic and Persian Inscriptions from Ahmedabad,’ 367–68 and Chaghatai, Muslim
Monuments in Ahmedabad, 70. For a detailed comparison with the Arabic portion see
Sheikh, ‘Languages of Public Piety,’ 204–05.
37 Sheikh, ‘Languages of Public Piety,’ 207.
38 *RGHµ'DWHVRI8GD\DUƗMDDQG-DJDGGKDUD¶±
114 In Praise of Kings

Sarasvati Moves to the Sultan’s Court

The 5ƗMDYLQRGDis an epic poem in seven chapters, each with an individual
title.39 We know little about the poet Udayaraja, who only mentions the names
of his father and his preceptor – Prayagadasa and Ramadasa, respectively.40
However, we are told, that he has ‘brought this pleasant offering of flowers
of verses’ as a gift for Sultan Mahmud Begada.41 Playing on his own name,
Udaya, or rising (usually of the sun), he reiterates in the end that he composed
the work for the ‘eternal rise or success’ (ĞDĞYDWXGD\D) of the Sultan, but of
course is it difficult to ascertain whether the ‘gift’ he composed in the hope of
securing the Sultan’s patronage actually led to him being granted an audience
with the king. Because Udayaraja has also been identified as the composer
of the 1488 Dohad inscription of 1488,42 and because the events recorded in
that stone inscription are not mentioned in the epic poem, the 5ƗMDYLQRGD
can be given a later date.43 If Udayaraja was indeed the composer of the
Dohad inscription, then it is possible that he would have resided and worked
in Mahmud’s domains for several years.44 Both the epic poem and, to some
extent, the earlier eulogistic inscription, narrate the Sultan’s genealogy and
describe his virtues, achievements, and lavish court.

39 The poem contains a total of 240 verses. At present, only one manuscript of the work
H[LVWV7KLVPDQXVFULSWZDVDFTXLUHGE\*HRUJ%KOHULQIRUWKH*RYHUQPHQW
of Bombay and housed at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune (BORI/
06 ±  7KH IHZ PRGHUQ VFKRODUV ZKR KDYH ZULWWHQ DERXW 8GD\DUƗMD¶V
5ƗMYLQRGDPDKƗNƗY\Dhave labelled it a ‘unique’ text, primarily due to its exaggerated
praises of a Muslim sultan known for his dedication to Islam in the idiom of Hindu
NLQJVKLS*RGHLQKLVHVVD\RQWKHGDWHRIWKHSRHW8GD\DUDMDFLWHV%KOHU¶VQRWHRQ
the manuscript: ‘The 5ƗMDYLQRGD«is quite a literary curiosity. The author…celebrates
Mahmud popularly reported to have been the most violent persecutor of the Hindus
DQG+LQGXLVPDVLIKHZHUHDQRUWKRGR[+LQGX.LQJ¶*RGHµ'DWHVRI8GD\DUƗMD¶
Another writer, S. A. I. Tirmizi, discusses the narrative in some detail but also ultimately
critiques it as filled with ‘the grossest possible exaggerations.’ See Tirmizi, ‘Sanskrit
Chronicler of the Reign of Mahmud Begarah,’ 45–60. The poem is not mentioned in
modern general histories of Gujarati literature, which tend to view the sultanate rule
as a period of declining Indic traditions.
40 5ƗMDYLQRGD, VII.41, 22. This is also the only entry found about him in Aufrecht,
Catalogus catalagorum, 65.
41 5ƗMDYLQRGD, I.4, 29.
42 *RGHµ'DWHVRI8GD\DUƗMD¶±
43 See Sankalia, ‘Dohad Stone Inscription,’ 212–25.
44 Sankalia, ‘Dohad Stone Inscription,’ 115.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 115

The 5ƗMDYLQRGD itself is centred on the Mahmud Shah and his kingly
activities, rather than a single battle or a series of events. The poet does
not tell a story chronologically but instead captures different points in the
life of the protagonist, as was often the case in epic-style kavya works.45 In
the 5ƗMDYLQRGD, Sultan Mahmud’s court is the primary focus of the poet’s
representation of him. It is a near-divine space to which we are introduced right
at the beginning of the composition; in fact, Sarasvati, the Puranic goddess of
learning, has left her heavenly abode to reside in this magnificent court. It is
she who narrates the virtues of the Sultan and his court throughout the poem,
and it is at her bidding that the poet claims he has composed this very work.46
Sarasvati is also invoked in the Dohad inscription as ‘the goddess who resides
in Kashmir’ (NƗĞPƯUDYƗVLQLGHYƯ), and finds mentions in other inscriptions and
texts from the Sultan’s reign.
By the fifteenth century, the courtly ethos that developed with the emergence
of new political systems beginning with the Gupta period around the fifth
century, had become an integral part of the ruling houses all over India. The
codes that defined the culture and practices of the court, however, were not
static and were interpreted according to the political context. In the case of
Gujarat, we find the use of courtly literature not only in the smaller chieftaincies
but also in a sultanate, as evidenced by the composition the 5ƗMDYLQRGD.
Dedicated to the regional sultan, it drew extensively from the courtly literary
tradition of kavya. One of the most striking features of Udayaraja’s panegyric
honouring Mahmud is its portrayal of the grandeur of the Emperor’s court. In
the 5ƗMDYLQRGDthe Sultan’s court is depicted as a semi-divine space in which
the displays of erudition, wealth, and magnificence are of a fantastic nature.
For Udayaraja, his patron’s court is far superior even to that of Indra, the king
of the gods. In fact, the 5ƗMDYLQRGD opens with a dialogue between Indra and
Sarasvati, in which the goddess of learning and music, explains her decision
to reside in Mahmud’s court.
The goddess appears to have descended to earth from her heavenly abode.
She is the daughter of the creator, Brahma, and her father is concerned about
her whereabouts. Brahma has sent Indra, his disciple, to look for her. Indra, ‘the
thousand-eyed one’, wanders from one street to another in her pursuit, and is
surprised to find the goddess convening with the scholars at the court of Sultan
Mahmud. Indra asks Sarasvati why she has given up the pleasures of eloquence

45 Warder, ,QGLDQ.ƗY\D/LWHUDWXUH, vol. 1, 169.

46 5ƗMDYLQRGD, VII, 40.
116 In Praise of Kings

in Brahma’s heavenly world and has chosen instead to entertain herself on earth.
The goddess responds with elaborate praise for Mahmud Shah’s court, which is,
she explains, not only the home of prosperity but also endowed with a ‘council
of the most learned of men’.47 Moreover, she describes how poetry can be
heard everywhere.48 The rich artistic culture of the court is, in fact, emphasised
throughout the poem. One chapter, entitled the ‘occasion of music performance’,
is dedicated to pursuits of music and dance at the court.49 Doe-eyed damsels
enter the music hall to the sound of the drums, and various fragrant flowers
and ever-burning incense infuse the atmosphere.50 The lustre of the royal
ceremony of arms is created by the rows of lamps lit in the evening – imagery
reminiscent of a military and religious ceremony performed by Kshatriya kings
in the monsoon season, before taking to the battlefield. Some of the women
play the veena with proficiency; others play the flute. The sound of the soiree
causes peacocks to dance vigorously.51 Hundreds of learned and wise expert
musicians, who appropriately sing of the king’s glories and increase the joys
of the courtiers, adorn the court.52 The music is accompanied by elaborate
dance performances by beautiful women who resemble the dancers from
Indra’s court.53 The pleasing music and dance performances are followed by
the Sultan’s amorous sports with the beautiful maidens.
Not only, then, is Mahmud’s court described in rich imagery and ornate
language, it also appears before the reader as an aestheticised performance of
pomp and show. The brilliance of Mahmud Shah’s throne, Sarasvati tells us,
surpasses not only that of Indra, the king of the gods himself, but also of the
other gods like Vishnu, as well as Kama, the god of love. The goddess does not
wish to return to the heavenly abode and has decided to permanently reside at
the Sultan’s court, which is the centre of poetry, music and scholarship. The
goddess’s change of residence, then by implication, is also a change in the
location of heaven itself to the court of an earthly sultan.

47 5ƗMDYLQRGD, I.10, I.11.

48 5ƗMDYLQRGD I.12.
49 5ƗMDYLQRGD, V. The Muzaffarid sultans, particularly Mahmud, were known to be great
patrons of music. A number of Indo-Persian texts bear witness to this. For details of
music patronage and textual production at the Gujarati court see Delvoye, ‘Indo-Persian
Accounts on Music,’ 253–280; and ‘Music Patronage in the Sultanate,’ 342–60. Also
VHH.RNLOµ*XMDUƗWQƗ6XOWƗQRQƗ6DPD\PƗ6DীJƯW¶±
50 5ƗMDYLQRGD, V.2, 3, 12.
51 5ƗMDYLQRGD, V.11.
52 5ƗMDYLQRGD, V.14, 15, 13.
53 5ƗMDYLQRGD, V.18, 13.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 117

In addition to being blessed by the goddess of learning, Mahmud Shah

is also portrayed throughout Udayaraja’s narrative as the paragon of a king:
one who pursues the goals of life as defined by the Indic tradition. In this
tradition, the king was, relative to his subjects, the man who most fully realised
the three worldly goals of ‘personal pleasure’, ‘the acquisition of wealth’
and the ‘upholding of the cosmo-moral order’.54 It was only the most ideal
of these kings, the paramount king, who realised these goals as does Sultan
Mahmud. Under this king’s command, we are told, that the cosmos is devoid
of transgressions: the stars, moon, and sunrise follow the proper order of time,
and the oceans do not flood. For the poet, not only does the Sultan partake of
the divinity of Sarasvati and Brahma, but also himself, in his persona as an
ideal paramount king, resembles a variety of other divinities. He shares each
of their special qualities in the pursuit of the three goals of life. Likening the
king to divine beings, often described as an incarnation on earth, is a notion
that draws from the traditional Puranic idiom of divine embodiment.
Mahmud’s portrayal as divine is further elaborated in the epic-poem’s
third chapter which, describes the Sultan’s toilette and entry into the courtly
space. This divine king, referred throughout this chapter as ‘lord of the earth’,
is awakened every morning by the sweet sound of musical instruments, the
neighing of horses, and pleasant songs and auspicious verses sung by his
wives.55 The Sultan’s face, which resembles the reflection of the ‘moon upon the
ocean’, is sprinkled with water and his body is anointed with the perfume from
the ‘deer’s navel’, or musk from the mountains in Kashmir.56 The fragrance of
camphor fills the air, while the betel leaf makes the Sultan’s mouth fragrant.
Udayaraja goes on to describe Mahmud Shah’s physical features: his body
appears to be home to the goddess of wealth who embraces his vast chest
and resides in his four limbs.57 The descriptions continue in a similar vein
as the Sultan enters the court under a canopy and ascends the royal throne,
where the subordinate kings recite his praises and the poets compose verses
proclaiming his glory.
The 5ƗMDYLQRGD’s claims on Indic ideas of sovereignty surface in passages
like these, replete with descriptions of Mahmud’s physical attributes, his
pursuits of pleasure at the court and the peace and prosperity that define his
rule. Such representations of the court and the king’s activities, along with the

54 Inden, ‘Hierarchies of Kings in Early Medieval India,’ 130–34.

55 5ƗMDYLQRGD, III.1, 2.
56 5ƗMDYLQRGD III.4, 5.
57 5ƗMDYLQRGD, III.10, 11.
118 In Praise of Kings

depictions of the king’s body, personal beauty, and exaggerated mannerisms

were integral to the courtly traditions of India. The latter were best articulated
in the kavya genre of elite Sanskrit poetry which had been patronised by the
Indic courtly elite from the early centuries of the Common Era. The king’s
martial prowess and warrior-like traits were also equally significant in this
convention in establishing his moral superiority over the rest of the society as
well as his rivals. This combination of the aesthetic aspects of the king’s court,
his pursuit of pleasure, his sensual activities, and his martial qualities is what
defined the nature of kingship in the classical Sanskrit literary world and had
become widely accepted all over India from the fifth century onwards.58
In invoking this convention, that was well-known all over the subcontinent,
the Sultan’s panegyrist was conveying his regional patron’s superiority over a
number of spheres. By the time the sultans of Gujarat had consolidated their
rule, the sultanate at Delhi had been reduced to just another kingdom among
many. Yet the control of Delhi did hold a significant place in the subcontinent’s
political imagination and many regional rulers, including the Muzaffarid
sultans of Gujarat, made unsuccessful attempts to gain control over it; Delhi
thus continued to remain a symbolic rival for many of these rulers. Mahmud had
also succeeded in taking control of the resources of his regional level rivals: the
numerous warrior chieftains. Many of these strongmen, as we have seen, were
of diverse origins and were also trying to establish their own social positions
in the region by claiming idealised and conventionally accepted notions of
Indic kingship through the patronage of poets and priests. The third and final
set of rivals that the Gujarati sultan had to face was the rulers of neighbouring
or distant regional kingdoms. In this context, there was no better means of
addressing these multiple spheres of competition than by invoking ancient
notions of authority that had been well-known from ancient times and through
idioms and conventions of Sanskrit, the oldest language of power available
on the subcontinent. Given the sheer number of language choices available in
the region then, the patronage of a Sanskrit panegyric, rather than Persian or
Gujarati, suggests that Mahmud also sought the prestige that this esteemed
language, available at a premium, could grant him. The eclecticism in his
self-representation as a ruler appears to be deliberate.
As has been established, 5ƗMDYLQRGD was not an entirely unprecedented
literary development. By this time, we do have epigraphs patronised by the
sultans of Delhi in which multiple elements of earlier long-standing Indic

58 Ali, Courtly Culture, 96–99.

 5ƗMDYLQRGD 119

traditions, such as titles of kings or Sanskritisation of Muslim names, are

clearly visible. However, such depictions were never on same scale as the
5ƗMDYLQRGD. What the 5ƗMDYLQRGD points to is the deliberate elaboration and
flowering, in scale and scope, of this Indic tradition to establish power in
several spheres. While it is the Mughals who have been celebrated in South
Asian historiography for their large-scale mobilising varieties of Indic political
and cultural traditions during the early modern era, what this poem indicates
is that such practices were already at work in the regional kingdom of Gujarat
during the fifteenth century.59

The Sultan’s Lineage and Multiple Domains

As an ideal Indic king, Sultan Mahmud is no mere embodiment of superior
physical and moral values but a holder of multiple titles and roles. The poet
Udayaraja imagines him as a king whose influence spreads over a variety
of domains, both real and imagined. First, Mahmud is the descendent of
Muzaffar Shah, the ‘lord of the gurjara country’, and himself the emperor of
the emerging region of Gujarat. In addition, Udayaraja places him at the apex
of the different traditional hierarchies of Indic rulers as the ‘king over high
kings’, (maharajadhiraja), asserting his independent status. Further, he is a
‘paramount king’, (nripacakravarti) having mastery over the entire Indian
subcontinent.60 As the ideal warrior and monarch, he has gained control
over the different kingdoms through his own personal prowess. Thus, in this
work the poet creates a sense of political geography in which the regional and
specific interact closely with the pan-regional and universal elements of Sultan
Mahmud’s representation. This is most apparent through two key chapters in
the narrative: the second, ‘narration of the lineage’ (vamsanusamakirtana),
and the fourth, ‘universal occasion’ (sarvavasara), in which the rulers from
different parts of the subcontinent visit Mahmud’s court. The Sultan’s universal
status, however, is developed throughout the poem.
In the second chapter of his panegyric to Mahmud the poet provides a
genealogy of the Gujarat sultans in thirty-one verses. Here the Sultan’s and his
predecessors’ conquests are merged with references and comparisons to Puranic

59 Another regional sultan who is known to have had a sustained engagement with
Sanskrit is Zayn al-Abidin of Kashmir (r. 1420–1470). See Obrock, ‘History at the
End of History,’ 221–236; Zutshi, Kashmir's Contested Pasts, 33 (33n); and Truschke,
Culture of Encounters, 12.
60 5ƗMDYLQRGD, VII.39.
120 In Praise of Kings

mythology. Each of the seven chapters in the poem also ends with a brief
genealogy of the sultans: ‘Lord of gurjara land’ Muzaffar Shah, Muhammad
Shah, Ahmad Shah, his son Muhammad Shah Gyasuddin. The list ends with
the line, ‘may his son, lord of kings, Mahmud Shah be victorious’.
Udayaraja’s genealogy of the Gujarati sultans also begins with its founder
Muzaffar Shah. The opening line links the rulers to the solar dynasty, thus
granting them authentic Kshatriya status:

The auspicious solar lineage emerged from the sun. This [lineage] was revered
and considered exemplary by kings. Muzaffar Shah was indeed the first of
these.61

This claim of the sultans’ links with the solar lineage is not found very often
in texts and inscriptions they patronised, though the Gujarati historian Sikandar
does narrate the story of their ancestors having once been Hindu ‘Tanks’, a
EUDQFKRI.KDWULVZKRWUDFHGWKHLUGHVFHQWIURPWKHG\QDVW\RIµ5ƗPDFDQGUD
whom the Hindus worship as God’.62 The Tanks were expelled from their
community, according to Sikandar, because they had taken to drinking wine.
Muzaffar Shah’s father and uncle were influential landholders and had the
ability to summon thousands of horsemen and foot soldiers. Consequently,
they managed to find service in Tughluq sultan, Firuz Shah’s retinue, forge a
marriage alliance with him, convert to Islam and eventually rise in the courtly
ranks.63 The regional sultans were thus indigenous Muslims whose conversion
had been a recent event.64 From Zafar Khan’s early days in the province, he
had been eager to display his commitment to the faith and encouraged the
movement and settlement of religious leaders throughout the region.

61 5ƗMDYLQRGD II.1.
62 Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, trans., 1.
63 Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ trans., 1–2.
64 Parallels to this account of the rise of the status of Rajput warriors can be found in the
accounts of the Kyamkhanis, a small Indian Muslim community from Rajasthan who
rose to prominence after their conversion to Islam in the 1450s. As the Muzaffarids,
the Kyamkhanis also benefitted from their ability to command resources in the
military labour market and from their association with Islam, which facilitated their
gentrification. Yet, Cynthia Talbot has demonstrated, in their historical accounts,
composed in Braj Bhasha, the Kyamkhanis celebrated both their conversion to Islam
and their Rajput warrior identities. Talbot argues that in doing so Kyamkhanis of the
early modern era thus negotiated multiple social and cultural spheres, simultaneously
participating in the local/vernacular as well as global/cosmopolitan arenas. See Talbot,
‘Becoming Turk the Rajput Way,’ 211–243.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 121

Udayaraja does not mention these elaborate details and also refers to
Muzaffar Shah, the first ruler of the dynasty, with the somewhat humble title
of ‘the noble king’. However, he also describes Muzaffar’s establishment of his
independent rule in Gujarat as a divine act. He notes that Muzaffar Shah left
Delhi and established his royal power in the gurjara country (JXUMDUDGHĞD)
in order to assist the diety, Krishna.65 He similarly borrows from Puranic
mythology to describe the same sultan’s conquest of Kachchh and other parts
of the region, comparing his fame to the monkey god Hanumana’s leap to
/DQNDLQWKHHSLF5ƗPƗ\D৆D.66 Muzaffar Shah is even referred to as holding
the title of the ‘liberator of the Malwa king’, whom he had initially defeated
and imprisoned.67 This Malwa king is Alp Khan, whose alliance he had sought
after assuming the title of independence; this title then is reminiscent of the
inscriptions of the Chaulukyas, who also seem to have been keen on expressing
their victories over the neighbouring kingdom.68 In repeatedly referencing
their conquest of Malwa, the poet appears to be both affirming his patrons’
superiority over their primary regional rivals as well as evoking the memory
of their regional predecessors.
Next in the genealogy, Muzaffar’s son, Muhammad, is praised for the strength
of arms, and described as resembling ‘the lustre of a thousand suns’.69 In what
is fairly conventional simile, Udayaraja writes that under his reign ‘the sun of
his munificence wipes out the darkness of poverty from the world’.70 However,
Udayaraja also refers to his march on Indrasprastha or Delhi in order to attack his

65 5ƗMDYLQRGD, II.2.
66 5ƗMDYLQRGD, II.3, II.4. Muzaffar Shah is not adorned with many elaborate titles in the
Sanskrit inscriptions from his reign as well. The Veraval stone inscription of c. 1408
refers to him simply as ‘respectable Dhafar Khan (from Zafar Khan) emperor Muzaffar’
(ĞUƯGDIDUDNKƗQ PXGƗIDUDSƗWVƗKD). See Shastri, Historical Inscriptions 4, no.6, 15.
Similarly, the Dholka well inscription refers to him simply as ‘respectable emperor
Muzaffar’ (ĞUƯPDGDIIDUSƗWDVDKD). However, this long inscription, which records the
construction of the step-well, refers to the patron, a certain Sahadeva of the ‫ܒ‬DN‫ܒ‬Dlineage
as being the Sultan’s favourite. This Vaishnava family seems to have been involved in
the administrative profession for at least three generations and an integral part of the
Delhi and Gujarati sultanate governments. See Shastri, Historical Inscriptions 4, no.7,
16–18. In the Dohad Inscription of Mahmud, however, Muzaffar is called Q‫܀‬SDEKnjSDWL
(king, lord of the earth).
67 5ƗMDYLQRGD, II.5.
68 See chapter 1.
69 5ƗMDYLQRGD, II.8. In the Dohad inscription he is only referred to in passing with the title
of PDKƯSDWL(lord of the earth). See Sankalia, ‘Dohad Stone Inscription,’ verse 3, 223.
70 5ƗMDYLQRGD II.6.
122 In Praise of Kings

enemy, a certain Mallakhana,71 and to his conquest of the formidable forests of

Nandapada (Nandol),72 once again interspersing the conventions of the Sanskrit
poetry with elements of history. This juxtaposition continues throughout the
genealogy. Ahmad, who arises from the ‘ocean’ that is Muhammad, is mentioned
for his attack of Hushangshah’s home at the Mandu fort and also for capturing
the fort of the ‘lord of Maharashtra’ by force.73 In addition to being a great
warrior, this sultan was also deeply devoted to the people.74 The generosity and
military prowess dominate the poet’s descriptions of all these great sultans of
gurajaradesa or Gujarat’ mentioned in the genealogy. After his son Muhammad
Shah’s ‘lustre and glory pervaded the earth’, the genealogy turns to the poem’s
protagonist: Muhammad’s son, Mahmud.
Udayaraja unsurprisingly dedicates a large part of the genealogy, nearly half
the stanzas, to the hero of the poem. As with his predecessors, exaggerated
praises drawing from the conventions of Sanskrit kavya are used to describe
the Sultan, yet in such descriptions, too, he emerges as superior to others in
the lineage as he embodies the virtues of multiple deities. As the poet notes:

In beauty he represents the god of love (makaradhvaja),

In generosity Karna75
In compassion he appears as the ideal divine king, Rama
In the battlefield equals Bhima76
In eloquence he is greater than the god of speech (YƗNSDWL), his charms are
like those of the great lord Vishnu,
The people are forever devoted to Mahmud Shah77

71 5ƗMDYLQRGD II.8. This could be a reference to the rebellion in Delhi following

Muhammad Tughluq II’s death through which Imad al-Mulk became the governor of
the province. Muhammad Shah Gujarati, much against his father’s wishes, chose to
march to Delhi and, like other former nobles of the Sultanate, sought to capture the
throne. For details of this expedition and how it eventually resulted in the sultan’s death
see Sikandar, 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ trans., 7–9.
72 5ƗMDYLQRGD, II.9.
73 5ƗMDYLQRGD, II.10-12.
74 5ƗMDYLQRGD, II.13. In the Dohad inscription Ahmad is referred to as the ‘knower of
the essence of all religions and thought’ (VDUYDGKDUPDYLFƗUDVƗUDVDUYDMxD). He also
seen as having conquered the lord of Malwa and capturing all his land and wealth. See
Sankalia, ‘Dohad Inscription,’ verse 4, 223.
75 Known for his charitable acts and generosity in the 0DKƗEKƗUDWD.
76 Known for his superhuman strength in the 0DKƗEKƗUDWD.
77 5ƗMDYLQRGD II.26.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 123

As is common in Sanskrit praise poems, the poet also dedicates several

verses to descriptions of his protagonist’s military prowess. But, as he did
in his descriptions of Mahmud’s predecessors, the poet steps away from the
universal descriptions to remind us of the Sultan’s position as the ruler of
the gurjara lands: he is the one ‘who serves JXUMDUDEKnjPLwith care’, yet,
‘is eager to hold Dhara’s (GKƗUƗSnjUƯ¶) hand’ reminding us of his conquest
of the fort of his rivals in Malwa.78 While no other specific places are
mentioned in the rest of the genealogy, Mahmud Shah is also described as
the destroyer of forts, and as creator of cities filled with lush fruit trees and
virtuous people.79
As transcendent as it aims to be, Udayaraja’s genealogy of the dynasty of
the Gujarati sultan also shows awareness of the region’s specific history and
his contemporary political surroundings. Despite the exaggerated claims about
the Muzaffarid sultans’ moral and martial powers which draw from the stock
metaphors of the genre, some of the military achievements Udayaraja describes
locate the poem and its political commitments squarely within the time and
space of sultanate rule. The genealogical portion of the poem traces Mahmud’s
dynasty to divine origins, claiming a Khastriya, or Rajput, lineage. As great
kings of the warrior caste, repeatedly compared to the epic heroes and kings,
the sultans are, implicitly – and explicitly in the case of Mahmud – depicted
as upholders of moral order in the world. By deploying the notion of Puranic
sacral kingship in a regionally grounded idiom, the 5ƗMDYLQRGDestablishes
homology with, and superiority over, the other Hindu rulers in and outside
the region who would have been familiar with such literary devices. As a
legitimate Indic warrior king, Sultan Mahmud’s sphere of influence would not
be restricted to the polities of Gujarat. We find this paramount king who has
established his authority over the entire subcontinent – the poet refers to him
as the ‘protector of the world’ – at the centre of a far more universal geography,
involving rulers from all the directions of the subcontinent.

Gurjaradesha as the Centre of Bharatavarsha: The Sultan as

Paramount King
In what is perhaps the most animated section of the 5ƗMDYLQRGD, in the fourth
chapter, the poet imagines his protagonist as being surrounded by the society

78 5ƗMDYLQRGD, II.20.
79 5ƗMDYLQRGD, II.24.
124 In Praise of Kings

of kings. The scene opens with the goddess Sarasvati entreating Indra to watch
as the kings from different lands are led into the court.80 Rulers from kingdoms
in all the different quarters accept Mahmud’s authority and participate in his
court rituals in all their pomp and glory. The scene draws entirely from the
conventions of classical Sanskrit poetry. The kings of these different countries
stand in ceremony and appear, one after the other before the Sultan as he sits
grandly on his eight-cornered throne; none of these kings are mentioned by
name but only referred to by the place they rule. Each one wishes to outshine
the other in the curiosities and presents that they bring forth in his honour.
The court of the emperor of Gujarat is the foremost among them all, and the
virtues of their own kingdoms are humbled by this great Sultan’s domain.
The king of Vanga, the land where the Ganga becomes ‘thousand faced’,81
offers the Gujarati sultan jewels from the western ocean.82 Next,

The Pandya king, who bows down before the great Lord [Mahmud Shah] in
respect, offers strings of pearls, resembling a piece of the moon in the oyster
shells from which they are gathered.83

The lord of Anga, who humbly offers a hundred women dressed in vivid
outfits and ornaments, follows this king from the south;84 the lord of Ratnapura
brings forth diamonds, while the Kalinga lord brings the gift of strong
elephants.85 Sprightly soldiers from Trilinga’s army then perform a war dance,
and after this passionate display of arms, the Malwa king places everything
he has at the Sultan’s feet in order to protect his own life.86 Thereafter the
pageant continues apace:

7KDW HYHQ JUHDWHU NLQJ .XPEKDNDU৆D87 … he too serves King Mahmud,

offering much gold in tribute.88

80 5ƗMDYLQRGD IV.1.
81 This could be a reference to the upper reaches of the Hoogli, known as Bhagirathi,
which is considered the source of the Ganges.
82 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.2.
83 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.3.
84 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.4.
85 5ƗMDYLQRGDIV. 5, 6.
86 5ƗMDYLQRGDIV.11.
87 This could be a reference to Rana Kumbha of Mewar.
88 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.12.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 125

7KHLQYLQFLEOHORUGRI.ƗPDUnjSDERZVGRZQEHIRUHKLVSURZHVV89
After experiencing this regal pleasure-grove, the king of Magadha, does not
return to nor desires [his own] royal abode.
He does not praise [his own] arbour nor is he desirous of the joys of residing
LQ3XৢSDSXUƯ [his capital]..90

From that country where the rivers Ganga and Yamuna meet, the lord of
Prayaga brings water in numerous, shining, golden pots.91 Dramatically, the
king of Mathura permanently subordinates himself by acting as the sultan’s
doorkeeper and spreading the fame of Mahmud, the ‘lord of the earth’.92 The
rulers of Kanyakumbja and Nepal are similarly humbled.93 Others shower
him with appreciation:

O brave one, you are Indra, Varuna, the wealth-granting Kubera,

Thus the Kashmir lord praises King Mahmud.94

And finally, the ‘king of the mudgals, possibly the Delhi sultan, offers his
crown to Mahmud, the gurjara emperor.95
In these verses, Mahmud’s kingdom of Gujarat, located in India’s western
quarter, becomes the centre of the political geography, even though it is the
kingdoms of the Gangetic basin that traditionally form the centre of the
subcontinent. The rulers of all these lands come to pay their tribute to the
great Sultan, all accepting his position as the universal king and ensuring
the prosperity of his domain. The wealth they bring, be it women, jewels, or
elephants, represents the Sultan’s superiority above them all. Yet this display
of inordinate wealth does not quite complete the scene, which continues, as
do other parts of the narrative, with the spectacle of poetry, music, and dance.
In court of this ‘lord of the earth’ there is an abundance of poets; the singers
experiment with different tunes in his praise, the wrestlers display their art
for the amusement of the audience; and beautiful maidens perform dances.96
We are told:

89 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.13. Kamarupa refers to the area in and around modern-day Assam.
90 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.14.
91 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.15.
92 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.17.
93 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.18,19.
94 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.20.
95 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.22.
96 5ƗMDYLQRGD., IV.25–27; IV. 28–31.
126 In Praise of Kings

As this great king Mahmud is everyone’s lord prosperity is ever-increasing,

Who can equal the one who holds the lands from the malaya mountains to the
Himalayas and from west to east?97

As has been established, the pursuit of pleasure was a crucial aspect of

the ideal Indic king’s sovereignty. In that sense, then, the king was ‘pleasure-
seeker-in-chief’, as the sultan with his courtly entertainments also appears to be.
This scene at the court, in which powerful kings from numerous well-known
regions offer various forms of wealth, is reminiscent of the one at Champaner’s
Chauhan Chieftan Gangadas’s court in which the messengers from different
directions report the political news from these to the king.98 However, in Mahmud
Shah’s case, it is not merely visiting messengers but the rulers of these lands
themselves that come to pay their tribute. This notion of the protagonist sultan
as the controller of all the directions of the subcontinent reaches a culmination
in the5ƗMDYLQRGD’s final chapter in the epic poem, which is entitled ‘achieving
victory’ (vijayalaksmilabh). Here, the rulers from all the different directions
of the subcontinent, travel to Mahmud’s court and accept their subordinate
status. In conjunction with the previous chapter, ‘the celebration of victory’
(vijayotsva), in which the sultan appears be making elaborate preparations
for battle, this final chapter acts as something of a conquest of directions
or digvijaya, that was also typically part of the duties of a traditional Indic
king. Mahmud Shah, the ‘paramount king among kings’, the nripacakravarti,
has established mastery over the rulers of the entire subcontinent.99 This
subcontinental victory, however, enhances the beauty and prosperity of his
regional kingdom, gurjarabhumi.100
In Udayaraja’s imagination of his protagonist, we witness the interplay
between the Sultan’s position as a regional king and as a Kshatriya paramount
whose influence extends across the subcontinent. However, the trope of the
kings from the different regions submitting to his power by presenting him
with a variety of gifts has the effect of reinforcing his position as a regional
monarch. In the last chapter of the epic, in the final conquest of the directions,
the poet reaffirms the Sultan’s lordship of the Gurjara land, depicting him as an
important regional king, and one who could extend his power into neighbouring
areas, if he so desired. This also bolsters the genealogy’s description of his

97 5ƗMDYLQRGD, IV.23.
98 Chapter 3 in this monograph.
99 5ƗMDYLQRGD VII.39.
100 For instance, 5ƗMDYLQRGD VII. 34, 35.
 5ƗMDYLQRGD 127

ancestors’ achievements within and beyond the region, and further establishes
Mahmud’s claim as the unparalled ruler of Gujarat.
Moreover, the goddess of learning’s arrival at the court has already shifted
the heavens to his earthly domain to a region which, as we know, is seen as
superior to all others in the subcontinent and through this description has
become the subcontinent’s centre. The sultan, in his panegyrist’s representation
of him, has thus succeeded in establishing his sovereignty over every sphere:
divine, subcontinental, regional, and local.

Conclusion
The claims Udayaraja makes for Sultan Mahmud and his predecessors as
the rulers of the gurjaradesha reveal that the poet sought to firmly locate
his protagonist and both his protagonist’s ancestors as the legitimate rulers
of the region. The 5ƗMDYLQRGD joins *D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DNDand the
0Ɨ۬‫ڲ‬DOLNDQ‫܀‬SDFDULWD in projecting its protagonist as an ideal Indic monarch.
For Udayaraja, Mahmud Shah is a fierce warrior and a benevolent king, and the
poet draws extensively on the stock imaginary of kavya, in order to enhance
this depiction. Yet in Udayaraja’s imagining, the Sultan is not merely a local
king. He is the ruler of the entire region of Gujarat, and, at the same time,
morally, militarily, and monetarily superior to other real or imaginary rulers
of the subcontinent, including those of Delhi. Consequently, the 5ƗMDYLQRGD
does engage with elements of Mahmud and his ancestors’ local and regional
achievements but also draws more prominently on the universally recognised
ideals of an Indic king. What emerges is an image of an independent regional
monarch with access to a variety of cultural resources, including Sanskrit,
which retained currency as a language of power in the fifteenth century.
This interweaving of specific historical events with pan-Indian metaphors
illuminates how power was being rearticulated and reconfigured at the regional
level. The poet deploys the resources of highly aestheticised Sanskrit poetry
to celebrate his patron and turn his regional kingdom in western India into the
centre of not only the subcontinent, but the universe: after all, Sarasvati, the
goddess of learning, has chosen to leave the heavens and move to Mahmud’s
court, by implication shifting the location of heaven itself. The trope of the
kings from all over the subcontinent, including the rulers of Delhi, offering
Mahmud tribute also shifts the earthly centre to Gujarat in western India,
clearly indicating where power is now located.
128 In Praise of Kings

While the Muzaffarid sultans themselves did not make their links to their
Rajput past explicit, we find detailed mention of their origins in Sikandar,
who enumerates several generations of their ancestors in his seventeenth-
century account. The sultans would also have been aware of the older Sanskrit
literary tradition – a tradition that was also deployed by their predecessors,
the Delhi sultans, in their inscriptions – as one that was being claimed by
their local adversaries as well. The sultans had consolidated their rule through
the development of local consensus; the local Rajput chieftains in particular
achieved concentrated power through conquest and negotiation, often through
marriage alliances between them and the sultans. Seen in this light, it is evident
that the 5ƗMDYLQRGD, although a rare example in terms of scale and the claims
it makes, was part of the process of regionalisation wherein the sultan could
be depicted in similar ways to the local Rajput chieftains but also in fact as
their superior.
Less than five decades after Mahmud Begada’s death in 1511, the Mughal
emperor Akbar inaugurated one the most successful and diverse polities in
Indian history. Establishing a local consensus through kinship ties with Rajput
kingdoms was a critical aspect of this process; much could be accomplished
through intermarriage, but strategically worded genealogies also proved to
have great currency. The Mughals were great patrons of Persian, and in fact
Persian remained the primary public language, but as recent scholarship has
shown, Brajbhasha and Sanskrit also figured prominently in the Mughal
political and cultural imagination.101 As an inflection point in the complex
history of multilingualism in fifteenth century promoted by the Gujarati
sultans, 5ƗMDYLQRGD¶V portrayal of its protagonist as a great Indic king appears
to foreshadow some of these developments, which saw much greater elaboration
under the Mughals.

101 Allison Busch has discussed the role of Brajbhahsha patronage at the Mughal court and
the courts of various Mughal nobles in several works. See for instance, Busch, ‘Hidden
in Plain View,’ and Poetry of Kings. For Sanskrit at the Mughal court see Truschke,
Culture of Encounters.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 129

5ƗV0ƗOƗ
Re-Discovering a Warrior Past

When, in the late sixteenth century, the Mughals in north India eventually
overpowered the regional kingdom of Gujarat, the system of negotiated harmony
that had developed between the Muzaffarid sultans and local chieftains was
unseated. While the regional sultanate came to an end, the Rajput chieftaincies
were subsumed into a new imperial administration. Decades before that, in
1511, Sultan Mahmud Begada had succumbed to ill health and had been buried
at the imperial necropolis of Sarkhej, on the outskins of Ahmadabad, close
to the remains of the revered Sufi, Sheikh Ahmad Khattu. During his fifty-
two-year reign, Begada had overpowered the two great forts of Champaner–
Pavagadh and Junagadh and integrated the numerous other local chieftains into
the regional imperium, both through conquest and through the imposition of a
tribute-paying system. By securing the support of spiritual leaders and other
diverse communities, both professional and religious, the sultans, particularly
Mahmud Begada, had managed to create a regional consensus. The prosperity
of the region, ensured by its fertile lands, flourishing seaports, and the revenue
system established by Sultan Ahmad and his successors, made these rulers
reliable paymasters in the north Indian military marketplace. Over time, the
sultans had emerged as important cultural patrons; cities like Ahmadabad and
Chamapaner grew as significant centres of sultanate-style architecture and
became home to a number of scholars and littérateurs.
Sultanate rule, and its network of relationships with local chieftains,
persisted for sixty years after Begada’s death. While the Mughal emperor
Humayun had defeated the Gujarati sultan Bahadur Shah in c. 1535, it was his
son Akbar’s conquest of Gujarat in late sixteenth century that made the region
an imperial province, or subah; it remained so until the late eighteenth century.
And then, as the Marathas became well-ensconced in the region with Mughal
130 In Praise of Kings

decline, the different parts of Gujarat came to be controlled by the Gaekwad

family, which had established itself in Baroda beginning in the early decades
of the eighteenth century. The Gaekwads conducted repeated and violent
revenue extraction incursions in different parts of the region, targeting the
chieftaincies of the areas surrounding their kingdoms, such as Mahi Kantha
and the Saurashtra/Kathiawad peninsula. These attacks were eventually put
to an end when the British annexed Gujarat, along with Kathiawad to the
Bombay Presidency in 1808.
Soon after they took over the region, the British embarked on the process of
committing Gujarat to history, as they did in other parts of the subcontinent.
In this period, during which the discipline of history itself was being formally
institutionalised in Britain, the region of Gujarat, along with Kathiawad and
Kachchh, came to be a part of the colonial historical imagination. Some of
the earliest expressions of this imperial narrative imperative was based on the
oral traditions of the Bhats, Charans, and other poet communities, who were
the repositories of genealogies and histories of the warrior-kings of Gujarat
and parts of western India.
One such influential work, 5ƗV0ƗOƗRUWKH+LQGRR$QQDOVRIWKH3URYLQFH
of Goozerat in Western India, was first published in 1856. It was written by an
officer of the East India Company who was stationed in Ahmadabad and other
parts of Gujarat in the mid-nineteenth century. The officer, Alexander Kinloch
Forbes (1821–1865), composed the monumental historical narrative within the
context of the early colonial encounter in Gujarat, at a time when traditional
notions of sovereignty, hierarchy, kingship, and the legitimate rights to rule
over the numerous kingdoms of the region were being rapidly reconfigured.
5ƗV0ƗOƗis a reconstruction of the history of the region, focusing principally
on the chieftains, whom Forbes often refers to as ‘Râjpoots’. Forbes casts the
Rajputs as the founders and the legitimate heirs of the region. He does so by
emphasizing two other elements: one, the oral traditions that speak of these
warrior clans, and two, the Rajputs’ prominence in the fifteenth century in
relation to the regional sultans. In this regard, 5ƗV0ƗOƗ reclaims the fifteenth
century as the most formative period of the region’s past. While Forbes’s
voluminous history, and work as a promoter of the Gujarati language, had a deep
impact on Gujarati writers, these particular aspects of its history did not end
up finding much popularity among the regional intellectuals that followed him.
5ƗV 0ƗOƗwas originally published in London and has seen several reprints
since. It was also translated into Gujarati in 1869.1 Divided into two volumes

1 Forbes, 5ƗV0ƗOƗ.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 131

and four books or sections, Forbes’s provincial history consists of over

eight hundred pages, including the author’s own coloured illustrations and
architectural drawings of Hindu and Islamic monuments from different parts
of Gujarat. The text itself is based on a variety of sources, among them Jain and
Persian accounts, colonial writings, and, most significantly, the oral narratives
of the Bhats, Charans, and other traditional genealogists and preservers of
oral traditions that had been an integral part of the Rajput chieftaincies and
princely houses of Gujarat. Forbes was assisted in his endeavours by a Shrimali
Brahmin poet named Dalpatram Dahyabhai (1821–1898), who became the chief
interlocutor between the traditional poets and the colonial officer.
5ƗV0ƗOƗ¶Vvalue for our study lies in Forbes’s understanding of the chieftains
as forming the basis of Gujarat’s political landscape. Rather than focusing on
imperial rulers like the Mughals and Marathas, Forbes foregrounds the role
of the political structures and relations defined by these numerous chieftains
who held much smaller patrimonies and lands but were a significant influence
on the politics of the region. Forbes is primarily concerned with these groups
and their interactions with the regional Muzaffarid sultans. While the oral
accounts he uses cannot be accurately dated, the memories they preserve of
these fifteenth-century encounters provide an alternative picture to the one
drawn in courtly accounts discussed in the previous chapters. For Forbes, these
were the chieftains who went on to make up the Princely states of Gujarat,
Kathiawad, and Kachchh; their political impact had longevity.
Forbes’s 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ was also one of the first works to have extensively
used the oral ‘bardic’ sources associated with the chieftains of Gujarat in
an attempt to reconstruct their past. Earlier, seventeenth-century Marwari
historian Munhata Nainsi wrote accounts based on oral traditions that included
genealogies of some Rajputs associated with Gujarat.2 Many of Gujarat’s
Rajput clans are also included in James Tod’s monumental nineteenth-century
work Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan. While Nainsi viewed his narrative
as a history of the Marwar kingdom, Tod was primarily concerned with the
entire northwestern region of Rajputana or Rajasthan that had become more
predominantly associated with the royal Rajput clans.
By contrast, 5ƗV0ƗOƗpresents itself as a history of the region the author
considered Gujarat. Forbes often uses the generic term ‘bardic authority’ to
describe the oral narratives of the Bhats and the Charans. The works of these
poets form an important parallel tradition to the Gujarati and Sanskrit texts

2 Nainsi Munhata, 0X۪KDWƗ1DL۬VƯUƯ.K\ƗW.

132 In Praise of Kings

discussed in the preceding chapters. Forbes’s detailed engagement with ‘bardic

authority’ reflects the fact that it was these oral traditions and the stories of
their warrior patrons that remained in circulation over several centuries and
were the main sources of the region’s history identified by him in the early
years of colonial rule.
Based on oral sources, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ was one of the few volumes covering
a vast temporal expanse of Gujarat’s history prior to the publication of the
official colonial Gazetteers in the second half of the nineteenth century. In
his introduction to the 1878 edition of the book, Major J. W. Watson, then the
British Resident based in Rajkot, noted, ‘There are but few other books of
reference about Goozerat, and none of them so encyclopaedic in character.’3
The 5ƗV0ƗOƗremains an important ‘source’ for Gujarati history and several
Gujarati writers and historians have viewed it as a historical work or ‘history
book’ as well as a source of historical raw materials for the study of the region’s
medieval past.4 In the nineteenth century, as the only work of its kind, it shaped
Gujarati writers’ views of their own region and its history.5
Several historians have written about the production of knowledge in
colonial India. Scholars like Bernard Cohn, Ronald Inden, Nicholas Dirks 6
and others have argued that the colonial rule introduced entirely new forms of
knowledge in India that were imposed on colonial society and facilitated the
colonial agenda of conquest. On the other hand, scholars C. A. Bayly, Eugene
Irschick, Thomas Trautmann, Norbert Peabody, and Phillip Wagoner have
suggested that the colonised were not merely passive recipients of these new
forms of knowledge but often collaborated in their formation through their

3 Watson, introduction to Forbes, Râs Mâlâ, ix.

4 Sherry Chand and Kothari, ‘Undisciplined History,’ 72–73.
5 Isaka, ‘Gujarati Intellectuals and History Writing,’ 4867–72. Isaka has discussed how
5ƗV0ƗOƗ shaped the structure and understanding of Gujarati historical writing. She
argues that these writers did not blindly emulate Forbes’s work but in fact produced
their own understanding of the region, recognising the importance of the regional
sultanate. Isaka suggests that Forbes and other colonial writers were uniformly critical
of the Muslim rule. However, while Forbes appears generally critical of ‘Mohammedan
sword’, my reading suggests that his understanding of the regional sultans was complex
and he in fact equates them to the Chaulukya rulers, whom he sees as a great Hindu
dynasty.
6 Cohn, An Anthropologist Among the Historians; Inden, ‘Orientalist Constructions of
India,’ 401–46 and Imagining India, Dirks, ‘Colonial Histories and Native Informants,’
279–313, and Castes of Mind.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 133

own expertise in indigenous knowledge systems.7 This symbiosis led to the

continuation of a number of indigenous forms of knowledge in the colonial
period and often played an important role in the way colonial knowledge was
systematised and codified.8 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ makes this second line of argument
particularly persuasive. A careful reading of 5ƗV0ƗOƗreveals a multilayered
text that was based on a wide variety of sources and was a product of numerous
contributors, especially for Forbes’s chief assistant, Dalpatram, and the
traditional genealogist-poets. This involvement, I suggest, shaped the manner
in which 5ƗV0ƗOƗrepresented the chieftains of Gujarat and their precolonial
political structures. However, I extend the arguments made by these scholars
to suggest that in foregrounding the bardic and mostly non-classical and non-
Sanskritic works of literature, Forbes’s5ƗV0ƗOƗµA Garland of Chronicles’,
portrayed a region shaped by the Rajput chieftains rather than in more
contemporary narratives, a land of trade and commerce.
The project of collecting materials on the history and culture of Indian
people by British officials was not a new one. Forbes was continuing a colonial
tradition, and he appears to have been familiar with James Forbes’s and
Mountstuart Elphinstone’s writing on western India, as well as with Grant
Duff’s work on the Marathas and John Malcolm’s work on central India. At the
time Forbes came to India, James Tod’s momentous work on the Rajputs, Annals
and Antiquities of Rajasthan, was already well known. With his training in
the Company’s Haileybury College in England, and the influence of the grand
old men of the British administration in India weighing on him, Forbes set out
on a crusade to understand, and thus arguably to control, indigenous society
on its own terms. His journey was undoubtedly fuelled by personal curiosity,
but it also served a colonial purpose, taking him into the realm of indigenous
knowledge institutions and to the politics of the Indian Princely States.

Gujarat in Forbes’s Time

The British took over the administration of Ahmadabad and other parts of
Gujarat from the Marathas in 1808 and incorporated them into the wider area of

7 Bayly, ‘Knowing the Country: Empire and Information in India,’ and Empire and
Information; Irschick, Dialogue and History; Trautmann, ‘Inventing the History of
South India,’ 36–54; Peabody, ‘Cents, Sense, Census,’ 819–50; Wagoner, ‘Precolonial
Intellectuals,’ 783–814.
8 For a more detailed exposition of the two strands of arguments, see Wagoner, ‘Precolonial
Intellectuals,’ 783–86. See also Sreenivasan, Many Lives of a Rajput Queen, 119–20.
134 In Praise of Kings

the Bombay Presidency. This led to the introduction of a new climate of peace
for the promotion of trade, a development that was greatly appreciated by the
merchant classes who were quick to adapt to the ways of the new government.9
In Ahmadabad and other major cities of Gujarat, there generally emerged an
attitude of cooperation between the British and the indigenous merchants, both
of whom understood the value in increasing profits. In these big cities, the
impact of the British government was primarily manifested in a new climate
for enterprise and the gradual emergence of a new social class consisting of
Western-educated government officials, lawyers, teachers, and small traders.
Several men from the traditionally wealthy families also became involved in
governmental affairs, and thus promoted and benefited from the social and
economic processes that had been set in motion by the British.10
While the British annexed some parts of Gujarat, particularly trading centres
like Ahmadabad, Surat, and Bharuch, the kingdoms of most of the indigenous
chieftains were not brought under their direct control. Like the regional sultans,
Mughals, and Marathas before them, the British brought the kingdoms of the
plains under their control with ease but found it difficult to do the same with
those that lay in areas of difficult topography, such as the salt flats of Kachchh
or the jungle uplands of Rewa Kantha and Kathiawad.11 Their remoteness from
the heartland of imperial power made setting up administration hazardous and
costly. The fragmented and fissiparous thrust of the politics in these regions
posed further difficulties in establishing direct control.12 The British organised
and grouped these ‘native’ or Princely states into various agencies, which,
according to their size and power, were supervised on behalf of the East India
Company’s government by Residents or Political Agents.
This pattern of political administration led to a two-tiered administrative
system in the region: in one part of Gujarat, a fragmented political system was
replaced by a uniform administration connected to the Bombay Presidency and
the wider colonial imperial network; in other parts, the British engagement
was active, but the integration of the Princely states into the wider all-India
colonial network was only gradual.13 In the first half of the nineteenth century,
the British government struggled to control the Maratha incursions into these

9 Mehta, The Ahmedabad Cotton Textile Industry; Joshi, ‘Dalpatram and the Nature of
Literary Shifts, 327–57.
10 Mehta, The Ahmedabad Cotton Textile Industry, 7.
11 Copland, The British Raj, 2.
12 Copland, The British Raj, 15–16.
13 Desai, Social Change in Gujarat, 96.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 135

states, to curb the internal warfare between them, and as their predecessors in
the region had done to establish lasting revenue relations. During this period in
which the British were expanding their reach over different parts of Gujarat, and
were competing with the Marathas and the chieftains for the region’s political
and economic resources, questions of sovereignty were of utmost importance.
It was against this backdrop that Alexander Forbes came to western India.
Like many of the East India Company’s administrators, Forbes was of Scottish
descent. He had been an apprentice at a London-based firm of architects in
the late 1830s, but he was soon nominated to the Civil Service of the East
India Company in 1840. After training at the Company’s Haileybury College,
he travelled to India in the winter of 1843, where he was appointed Assistant
Collector of Ahmednagar in the Bombay Presidency. This was the beginning
of Forbes’s long career in western India. Today, Forbes is remembered more for
his literary and cultural engagement in the region than for his administrative
acumen, for, from the outset, he encouraged the development of literary
societies, newspapers, and schools.
Forbes’s attitude to governance was deeply influenced by the European
Romanticism of early British administrators in India such as Thomas Munro
(1761–1827), John Malcolm (1769–1833), and Mountstuart Elphinstone
(1779–1859). Their philosophical sensibilities led to a personalised, benevolent,
and paternalistic style of rule.14 Good governance was to be nurtured by
developing sympathetic understandings of India and its people. Further, as
administrators, they were sensitive to history as an organic expression of
a society’s character and thus were anxious to conserve India’s enduring
institutions as they saw them. Men like Malcolm endeavoured to rehabilitate
and reclaim for the Company what they conceived of as an Indian tradition
of personal government.15 They believed in a style of governance that was
committed to a sympathetic understanding of India and its people through
the development of an intimate knowledge of the country. Elphinstone, for
instance, wrote a two-volume work on Indian history with extensive borrowings
from the work of the early philologist ‘orientalists’ but based the authority
of his scholarship on his own extensive perusal of historical documents and
personal experience of being in India. He was convinced that India could not
be understood merely through its texts and grammars,16 nor separated from its
people. Such ideas are visible in Forbes’s personal practices as well as in the

14 Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, 24–26.

15 Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj, 25.
16 Dirks, ‘Colonial Histories,’ 281.
136 In Praise of Kings

institutions he established and nourished, and they are expressed explicitly,

as we shall see, in the design and intention of 5ƗV0ƗOƗ
In his memoir of Forbes, Manasukhram Suryarama Tripathi’s observations
reflect an inclination towards this paternalistic style of governance. Tripathi,
who was the honorary secretary of the Gujarati Sabha, a literary organisation
that Forbes helped set up, at the time of the Forbes’s death, notes that when
the administrator travelled all over the region he preferred to go on foot.17 On
these journeys Forbes would always carry a map, a bag of money, a pistol,
and a stick. On the way, as he met different people he would speak to them as
though he was an ordinary man rather than an important officer of the East
India Company. This way, writes Tripathi, Forbes would learn all the news of
the land: local habits and practices; people’s joys, sorrows, and superstitions;
and help anyone who appeared to be in distress or difficulty.
In a later memoir, in the 1924 reprint of 5ƗV0ƗOƗ H. G. Rawlinson notes that
Forbes was aware of the shortcomings of the ‘native’ princes’ and chieftains’
policies of governance. Yet he was critical of the Company government’s
attempts to impose control over the Indian kingdoms by interfering in matters
of succession and other internal issues.18 He instead believed that reform and
improvement in these kingdoms would have to come from without, not ‘in a
policy of wholesale annexation, but in establishing a civil service with tact,
sympathy, and knowledge of the people, to be able to guide the administration
of the native states along proper lines’.19 It was in these terms that Forbes
perceived his project of collecting, collating, and writing the history of the
region for the aid of his colleagues and successors.
Forbes’s activities in creating and encouraging the nascent institutions of
civil society, such as literary societies, newspapers, and schools, in the parts
of Gujarat in which he served, illuminate his personal interest in the region,
in addition to his philosophy of governance. For instance, in 1848, while
serving as a judge and sessions judge in Ahmadabad, Forbes was instrumental,

17 Tripathi, )ƗUEDVMƯYDQFDULWUD, 17. This memoir was written in order to accompany the
Gujarati translation of the 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, published in the same year.
18 Rawlinson, ‘Alexander Kinloch Forbes,’ xi. Unless otherwise specified, I use this edition
of the text throughout the chapter. It is noteworthy that after its publication in 1856,
the RƗs MƗlƗ was reprinted with an introduction by J. W. Watson and a memoir of the
author by A. K. Nairne in 1878. See A. K. Forbes, RƗs MƗlƗ. In 1924, it saw another
reprint, this time with a memoir by Rawlinson. The 1997 edition that I have used is the
reprint of the 1924 publication.
19 Rawlinson, ‘Alexander Kinloch Forbes,’ xi..
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 137

along with other officials, in establishing the Gujarat Vernacular Society for
the promotion of the Gujarati language. Forbes had first been introduced to
Indian languages and literature, particularly through Sir William Jones’s work
on Sanskrit, while studying at Haileybury. In India, he passed examinations
in Hindi and Marathi and later, when posted in Ahmadabad, he also began
learning Gujarati, initially from a certain Rao Bahadur Bhogilal Pranvallabhdas
and then from Dalpatram, whom he met in 1848.
In 1850, Forbes was appointed assistant judge and sessions judge in Surat.
As in Ahmadabad, here, too, he initiated and became involved in a number
of civic activities. He started a weekly newspaper called Surat Samachar and
helped to set up a library. At the behest of the Bombay government, he also
took on the post of the ‘city improvement officer’, during which he worked
towards creating awareness about various civic matters among the people of
Surat.20 In 1851, Forbes returned to Ahmadabad as the first assistant collector,
and in 1852 he was appointed Political Agent at Mahi Kantha. In the following
year, he became the assistant judge and sessions judge at Ahmadabad. In 1854,
Forbes returned to England, where he completed 5ƗV0ƗOƗ
Back in India in 1856, Forbes was sent to Surat as acting judge and later
worked in the same capacity at Khandesh. In 1859, however, his expertise on the
region was acknowledged by Lord Elphinstone, the then Governor of Bombay
Presidency. Elphinstone appointed him Political Agent of Kathiawad, with the
particular aim of subjugating some ‘recalcitrant chieftains’ and the piratical
‘rebel’ Vaghers of Okhamandal. After serving in Gujarat for a few more years,
Forbes was appointed judge at the Sadar Adalat (High Court) at Bombay in
1862. In Bombay, Forbes continued to be involved in various activities related to
the promotion and preservation of Gujarat’s history and culture. In 1864, he was
offered the presidency of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society but
he declined the position, and chose to be its vice-president instead. In the same
year, he was appointed vice-chancellor of the Bombay University. In Bombay,
as in Ahmadabad, he received the support of the city’s elites for his zeal for
establishing societies and newspapers promoting the Gujarati language. Thus,
a number of prominent citizens of Bombay interested in Gujarat approached
him to help set up the Gujarati Sabha for the same cause. The Sabha, which
was later renamed the Farbas (Forbes) Sabha, was established in March 1865
with Forbes as its president. Soon after this, Forbes, who had suffered from a
long term illness, died in Pune in the August of the same year.

20 Tripathi, )ƗUEDV MƯYDQFDULWUD11–12.

138 In Praise of Kings

The Gujarati Sabha’s formation can be seen as a major step by the nationalist-
minded elite of the region towards the invention of a common self-identity, a
process that had taken hold in other parts of the subcontinent as well. Not long
after the publication of Forbes’s voluminous work did a number of these elites
also begin the collection and composition of literary works they associated with
Gujarat. Forbes’s scholarly endeavours and involvement in these institutions
provided legitimacy and facilitated this production of a new regional identity.
In addition to his involvement with the urban elite, Forbes also appears to have
been engaged in the production of a more specific idea of Gujarat as a region
based on its literary past, particularly in less urban areas where vestiges of the
Rajputs, their clans, and poets, were still visible. In the following sections, I
explore these aspects of Forbes’s collection project and its ultimate product,
5ƗV0ƗOƗ

5ƗV0ƗOƗ and Gujarat’s Bardic Tradition

Alexander Forbes used a variety of sources in the writing of 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, but
the Bhats, Charans, and other communities of itinerant poets were his most
important. Thus, not only were the Rajputs Forbes’s protagonists, but their
own poet-historians also animated the narrative. In the preface to 5ƗV0ƗOƗ,
Forbes notes that not long after he had moved to Gujarat, that he came across
documents that bore the characteristic signatures of ‘two bards’, signs indicative
of an economic structure that he had never encountered before.21 These
documents and their composers aroused his curiosity, and he sought more
information about these men, their dialect, and their repertoire, which would,
he believed, be the ‘means of unlocking the casket in which the treasure was
contained’ – meaning the indigenous economic and social system of Gujarat.22
To circumvent administrative difficulties, Forbes sought the aid of local elites
and scholars; what he found were accounts and administrative documents
written by bards, whose role in the political, social and religious world of the
chieftains was on the decline. The bardic documents that Forbes was interested
in were directly connected to the different ruling clans scattered all over the
region and with whom the British were interacting at the time as part of their
policy of territorial expansion. It may have been the richness of information
about the chieftains contained in these sources that prompted Forbes to take

21 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, xx.

22 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, xx–xxi.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 139

steps toward reviving the bardic institution for a new era, albeit without the
poets’ prior political and administrative functions.
Since at least the twelfth century, communities of Bhats and Charans had
been an integral part of the numerous royal houses of Gujarat, Kathiawad,
and Kachchh, for whom they kept genealogical records and maintained
family histories. The Charan poets often travelled with their patrons during
battles and performed praises of their deeds in order to inspire the warriors.
Serving several other political and ritual functions for the Rajput clans, the
poets’ position YLViYLV their patrons had been a complex one as these bards
performed numerous secular and religious roles. As poets, they composed
and chanted verses in their own unique styles and metres. Their compositions
were generally in praise of a renowned warrior from the patron’s putative
ancestor, in commemoration of a victory, or in praise of a present chieftain.
Historically, they were known for accompanying the armies of their patrons
into battle and for inspiring the soldiers to fight by loudly chanting poems about
the commanding chieftain and his lineage.23 The two main castes of Bhats
and Charans were further subdivided in smaller groups, some of whom kept
written records of the genealogies and poems, while others committed them to
memory.24 As not only poets but genealogists, these bards helped affirm their
patrons’ links to prestigious mythological or historical ancestors and assert
their social positions among other Rajput groups.
In addition, bards commanded great respect among their patrons because
they themselves were considered directly linked to the goddess; hence, their
presence was perceived as sacred, or even favourable, in mediations related to
diplomatic or revenue transactions between kingdoms. Their ethical and moral
power in these instances was further enhanced by their willingness to perform
self-harm, or traga, which sometimes included suicide, self immolation, or
the murder of a female relative, to enforce compliance with an agreement.
Shedding the blood of a Charan or Bhat was seen to bring great misfortune
to the person responsible, as it was believed that these groups were mother
goddess worshippers and in fact the goddess’s children. This symbolic but
very real power allowed the bardic group to play key roles in the functioning
of western Indian society until the early nineteenth century. Inevitably, the
linguistic wares of these godly poets were fiercely protected, as they both

23 Singhji, The Rajputs of Saurashtra, 239.

24 6HH6KDKDQG6KURIIµ7KH9DKƯYDQFƗ%ƗUR৬VRI*XMDUDW¶±7KLVVWXG\E\6KDKDQG
Shroff is a seminal work on these genealogists whose traditions still remain neglected
in contemporary scholarship.
140 In Praise of Kings

legitimised and perpetuated rule in many of the chieftaincies, and served

important diplomatic and martial purposes. The bards’ hold over the ruling
houses of the region thus posed a significant challenge to the authority of the
colonial administration’s financial, territorial, and legal aims. In the early
years of colonial rule, the British systematically delegitimised their duties,
curtailing their administrative functions, and rendered them redundant to the
new political order.25 By the time that Forbes started working in Gujarat, the
role of bards, an institution that was once crucial to the identity and authority
of the Rajput chieftains, was on the decline.

5ƗV0ƗOƗ and its Making

5ƗV0ƗOƗbegins with a description of what Forbes considers to be Gujarat’s
natural boundaries, and in the first section, tells the story of the early medieval
(eighth- to thirteenth-century) dynasties of Patan and Kathiawad. The second
book is an account of the ‘Mohumeddan’ period in Gujarat, but true to Forbes’s
own agenda, it focuses mainly on the Rajput chieftains, their clans, and their
political relations with the regional sultans during the fourteenth to the sixteenth
centuries. In the third book, which covers the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, Forbes writes of the Maratha empire, and then the beginning of British
rule in India. Even though the periodisation in the second and third books is
determined by the dominant rulers of those periods, namely, the ‘Mohumeddans’
and the ‘Mahrattas’, respectively, Forbes is primarily concerned with the
‘Rajpoots’ or warrior chieftains who, he believed, formed the substratum of the
political landscape of the region during this time. ‘The story of these Hindoo
chieftainships is our principal concern,’ he notes.26 In both these books, Forbes
focuses on the chieftains’ relations with the two categories of dominant rulers
and eventually with their involvement with the British.
Finally, in the fourth book, entitled Conclusions, Forbes’s focus shifts to a
mixture of topics including the different Hindu castes of Gujarat; Rajput land
tenures under the ‘Mohumeddans’, Marathas, and the British; as well as to
festivals and other social rites and rituals that were current among the Hindus
in the region at the time. The focus on the chieftains renders the rule of the
Mughals, and the Marathas, marginal to Forbes’s imagination of Gujarat’s
history. Forbes almost entirely ignores Mughal rule over Gujarat but expresses

25 Neil Rabitoy discusses this process in detail. See Rabitoy, ‘Administrative Organisation
and the Bhats,’ 46–73.
26 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, 276
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 141

his admiration for the regional sultans. The Marathas, however, are treated
with utmost disdain. He regards them as ‘vulgar’, ‘wily’, and ‘mercenary’ at
various points in the book. This attitude is shaped perhaps by Forbes’s own
experience of the turbulent relations between the British and the Marathas;
his genuine affection for the subjects of his study, the chieftains; and his view
that the British were the most benevolent of the rulers to have controlled the
region in the face of its current political condition.27 Thus, 5ƗV0ƗOƗcovers a
vasr-temporal range but focuses most specifically on the chieftains and their
clans, their kingdoms, and their political relations. Like other colonial writers,
Forbes also views the arrival of the British as the panacea of the region. The
historical account in the text ends in 1838, with the settlement of and control
of the district of Mahi Kantha, where he would become Political Agent, when
‘the British influence became paramount throughout Goozerat’.28
As noted, the sources of 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ are varied, though it is the contents
and the tone of ‘bardic’ legends that dominate the narrative. The first book
combines Jain texts such as Hemacandra’s twelfth-century grammatical and
historical work, 'ZD\DĞUD\D, and Merutunga’s fourteenth-century work
3UDEDQGKDFLQWƗPD۬L‘wishing-stone of chronicles’.29 Brahmin poet Krishnaji’s
poem dedicated to the Chaulukya rulers, entitled Ratan 0ƗOƗor ‘garland of
jewels’, and the work of the bardic poet Chund Bardai, who wrote the biography
of the legendary Chauhan king Prithviraja. In the second book, Forbes relies
more on the accounts of the Persian histories like the 7ƗUƯNKL)LULVKWƗand
the 0LU¶ƗWL$‫ۊ‬PDGƯto discuss the specific details of the regional sultans but
still bases the account more substantially on the bardic narratives. Similarly,
in the third book, which is also the last of the historical sections of 5ƗV0ƗOƗ,
Forbes’s account relies on these oral narratives about the chieftains but uses
Alexander Grant Duff’s History of the Mahrattas (1826) and James Forbes’s
Oriental Memoirs (1813–1815) to describe the history of the Marathas. While
the Rajputs remain the focus of the narrative in this section, British involvement
in Gujarat is clearly seen as beneficial both for the Indian chieftains as well
as the Marathas.
Forbes, however, is cautious about the ‘factual’ value of the Indian sources
he uses. He writes, ‘The present work is wholly popular, and advances no
claims to scientific value.’30 For instance, he sees the Hindu traditions as

27 Rawlinson, ‘Alexander Kinloch Forbes,’ xvi; see also Sherry Chand and Kothari,
‘Undisciplined History,’ 76.
28 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 2, 218.
29 See Chapter 1 in this monograph for more on these texts.
30 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ vol. 1, xxii.
142 In Praise of Kings

‘destitute of historical foundation’31 and warns against the exaggerations that

are integral to bardic tales. The Jain accounts, he says, are more concerned
with ‘ecclesiastical transactions’ than ‘civil affairs’ but, in both cases, ‘they
rather content themselves with anecdotes than attempt a connected relation’.32
He is, however, somewhat more convinced of the Jain sources’ validity as
records of ‘facts’ than their Hindu counterparts.33 He is also critical of the
‘Mohumeddan historians’, who for the most part describe the Hindu chieftains
‘only under the title of infidels, insurgents or rebels’ even though it is clear,
he claims, that neither the sultans nor the Mughals were ever able to effect
their complete subjugation.34 Forbes’s critique of the ‘Musalaman’ period is
not different from the norm at the time, yet he is in constant admiration of the
regional sultans, at least until Sultan Mahmud Begada’s rule.
Even though the poetry may have exaggerated facts, which, Forbes notes,
was also the case in the medieval kingdoms of Europe; ‘there is often in the
bardic sketches much of spirit, and of effective, however rude, colour and
drawing.’35 To justify the poems’ accuracy, Forbes further cites the author
of a book entitled The Lives of the Queens of England (1844). Overall, the
bardic accounts that he collected were, he thought, similar to those found
in England and in Europe. He writes, ‘Where they are written, and are
intelligible without oral explanation (author’s emphasis), [they] may rank with
the contemporaneous ballad poetry of other nations; where unwritten, they
approximate to common oral tradition.’36
The 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ was clearly composed for an English readership and is
generously interspersed with references to European mythology and folk
legends, as well as parallels drawn from the Shakespeare’s plays. Thus for
instance, the birth of the founder of Anhilvada–Patan, Vanraja, is compared
with the birth of king Edward’s son in Shakespeare’s .LQJ+HQU\,9.37 Similarly,

31 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗvol. 1, 228–29.

32 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗvol. 1, 228–229.
33 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗvol. 1, 229.
34 ‘The Mohummedan historians, for the most part, refer to them only under the titles
of infidels, insurgents, or rebels. From the accounts, however, which the Moslems
themselves have left us…it is clear that Goozerat was very far from having been
conquered even by the lieutenants of Allah-ood-deen. The task had to be attempted
again and again by his successors, and was in fact…never fully accomplished.’ Forbes,
5ƗV 0ƗOƗvol. 1, 276.
35 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 2, 265.
36 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗvol. 2, 265–66.
37 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 33.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 143

the legend of Siddharaja’s use of spirits (bhoots) to construct a water tank is

compared to the practice in France of attributing ‘everything possessing any
extraordinary character … by the credulity of the former generations, either
to the fairies, the devil, Caesar.’38 These parallels seem to give 5ƗV0ƗOƗa
universal and familiar quality for the English or European reader.39 In the
preface to the book, Forbes specifies his perceptions of the uses to which his
work may be put. He writes, ‘… it may … be of use to the local officer, and
may interest some few even of my countrymen at home, in the fortunes of their
fellow subjects – the Hindoos in Goozerat.’40 Indeed, in the 1878 edition of
5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, J. W. Watson, then the Political Agent of Rajkot, reiterated Forbes’s
work’s continuing use for the purposes of the administration.41
As legible as Forbes wanted his work to be to English audiences, the bulk
of 5ƗV 0ƗOƗis based not on European classics or even familiar literary forms
but on Forbes’s collection and interpretation of the bardic legends. As his
assistant, Dalpatram was tasked with facilitating Forbes’s understanding of
these oral traditions of the Bhat and Charanas. He gave Forbes ready access
to this otherwise closed and secretive world, providing skilled and erudite
translation and exegesis of the poetic historical epics of the Bhats and Charans.
He became so indispensable because, through his own personal acquaintance
and reputation, he allowed Forbes access to this otherwise hidden world. The
precise style and politics of the traditional poets of the region would probably
not have been comprehensible to Forbes without Dalpatram’s guidance.
However, the poets of the region were not merely neutral containers of historical
wisdom; their presentations, as I have noted, were eulogistic, but also dynastic,
and directed by the needs of courtly politics of the time. It was the accounts
of such men that became the basis of much of the 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ.
Prior to his meeting Forbes in 1848, Dalpatram had been closely associated
with this category of court poets. Despite being born to a family of priests,
Dalpatram had chosen to follow the Swaminarayan sect and a career in
composing poetry in Brajbhasha, the language associated with Bhats. He
travelled extensively over Kathiawad and Kachchh, attending poetic gatherings
or sabhas. In these gatherings, many of which took place in temple precincts
and sometimes at royal courts, Bhats and Charans would be encouraged,
either by the patron or the audience, to prove their skills over one another.

38 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 159.

39 See Sherry Chand and Kothari, ‘Undisciplined History’, 75.
40 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, xxii.
41 Watson, Introduction, ix.
144 In Praise of Kings

Dalpatram often competed in these sessions and succeeded in proving his

poetic abilities against the traditional poets. He gradually became well known
in and outside Kathiawad and was honoured by the king of Idar and later
by the maharao or ruler of Kachchh. He was also invited by poetry-loving
seths, wealthy merchants, of Ahmadabad to perform at gatherings held in
their homes.42 Yet, despite his popularity among the wealthy elite, patronage
remained intermittent, and he was not able to find a permanent patron to fulfil
his ambition of becoming a ‘court poet’, or rajakavi, who could compose in
Brajbhasha and in the Dimgal style, like some of the Bhats. Since Dalpatram
was a Brahmin by caste, his desire to find a position equal to the Bhats,
however, speaks of the significance of their literary works and social positions
in Gujarat and western India.
Forbes heard about Dalpatram and his skills in poetry through Bholanath
Sarabhai, a colleague at the court in Ahmadabad. In the winter of 1848, he
summoned Dalpatram from his hometown, Wadhwan, to Ahmadabad, in order
to assist him in his task of gathering Gujarat’s history and poetry. Dalpatram
subsequently wrote of his meeting and interaction with his English employer in
very emotional terms.43 Forbes’s own account does not mention the encounters

42 Dalpatram, .DYLĞYDU'DOSDWUDP, vol.1, 174–76.

43 Dalpatram describes the experience in the following words:
After studying the different poetic ornamentations,
My heart was bound to poetry;
I was looking everywhere for a leader of men,
I was calling out for him in the world of god,
In the court of a generous and sincere patron,
I had the desire to find a place,
As these thoughts came to my mind, says Dalpat,
  )ƗUEDV¶VVXPPRQVDUULYHGMXVWDWWKDWRSSRUWXQHPRPHQW
At the gates of Khanpur [Ahmadabad] near the banks of the river,
I met him at the sun-moon palace [name of Forbes’s residence];
It was the year 1848 of the Christian era,
There was complete affection in the first meeting itself,
It increased five times when he [Forbes] was close and ten times when he was afar,
The love increased during the pleasant companionship…’
Dahyabhai, )ƗUEDVYLUDKDvol. 1, 2–3. During the period in which they worked together,
close bonds of friendship developed between Forbes and Dalpatram. These are reflected
in this long poem in Gujarati, which can be translated as ‘The Sadness of Separation
from Forbes’ that Dalpatram composed after Forbes’s death. In this poem, Dalpatram
expresses deep sadness for the loss of bygone days shared with Forbes and describes
his mentor and friend in eulogistic and even somewhat romantic terms.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 145

between the two men with the same degree of sentiment. However, Forbes
acknowledges the debt he owes to his Indian collaborator by noting that since
they first met his ‘valuable co-adjutor’ had been almost constantly by his side.44
Forbes furnished his new assistant with the means to travel all over Gujarat
so as to look for chronicles and to copy inscriptions. He himself travelled to
many parts of the region during his official work and took every opportunity
to gather information about its history from local poets and Jain repositories
known as bhandars. In these travels, Dalpatram acted as his assistant, guide,
and interpreter.
The efforts of the two men did not only result in the compilation of the 5ƗV
0ƗOƗbut also led to the formation of a number of societies and newspapers
for the promotion of Gujarati language and of the ideas of reform.45 Dalpatram
became actively involved in the work of the Gujarat Vernacular Society, and
from 1855 onwards served as its secretary and the editor of its journal. Prior
to this he had also been involved in Forbes’s reformist and philanthropic
activities. Dalpatram continued to be involved in the Society’s work after
Forbes’s death.46 Of more specific significance to the making of the 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ
is the fact that Forbes based the fourth book of the text almost entirely on two
Gujarati essays by his assistant.47

44 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. I, xxi.

45 6HHDOVR0HKWDDQG0HKWDµ'DOSDWUƗPDQH$OHNVƗQGDU)RUEHV¶
46 Dalpatram went on to become one of the preeminent reformist poets writing in Gujarati
in the nineteenth century. As has been noted, prior to meeting Forbes and becoming
involved in his historical endeavours, Dalpatram had been well known for his poetry in
Brajbhasha, rather than Gujarati. However, his engagement with the welfare of Gujarat
and the promotion of the Gujarati language seems to have developed only after his
interaction with Forbes and his involvement with the Gujarat Vernacular Society. This
is also the time when he began composing poetry in Gujarati. In this regard, Dalpatram
appears to have shifted away from his earlier ambition of becoming a court poet in
favour of a newer, more urbanised role as an assistant to a colonial officer, preferring
to be the latter’s guide and interpreter. It is worth reiterating that his interaction with
Forbes, the idea that this great colonial officer was leading Gujarat to the restoration of
its past glory, and his own role as an agent of this restoration were crucial in Dalpatram’s
re-articulation of himself as an urban reformist poet serving the cultural and ideological
needs of the Ahmadabadi elite, rather than a wandering poet seeking his fortunes in
the princely houses whose influence and power were on the decline.
47 This section differs from the rest of the book as it introduces its reader, who Forbes
imagined to be a young British officer serving in the region, to different aspects of Hindu
society in Gujarat. It deals, as has been noted, with the descriptions of the dominant
castes, customs, religious and secular practices, and with land tenures. The bulk of this
146 In Praise of Kings

About the title of his work, Forbes notes, ‘In imitation of the titles of some
WKHOHJHQGVIURPZKLFKLWLVGHULYHG,KDYHFDOOHGP\FRPSLODWLRQ³5ƗV0ƗOƗ´
or “A Garland of Chronicles”.’48 5ƗV0ƗOƗ¶V title itself draws from different
aspects of the region’s oral traditions. While the use of the term ‘chronicle’, a
historical account that is chronological or arranged according to linear time,
the Gujarati term rasa does not carry the same association of linearity or
time.49 The word rasa, or rasau, has at least three meanings, all derived from
oral traditions of different kinds. One meaning of rasa has origins in the Jain
tradition of composing biographical and historical works with moral teachings
for the community. While many of the works were written down, they were
also recited by Jain preceptors to convey the deeds of great men of the faith.
Rasa is also the type of poem set to music that is associated with a folk dance
form in Gujarat, and finally, rasa or rasa lila are the terms used for the Puranic
deity Krishna’s dancing dalliances with his female friends, the gopis.50 The
5ƗV0ƗOƗ does follow a broad chronological approach but, as we shall see, its
use of literary works and oral traditions as sources gives it a far more fluid
character compared to the more standard Western-style works of history that
were being written in the nineteenth century.

Chieftains and Sultans in 5ƗV0ƗOƗ

5ƗV 0ƗOƗdoes not follow a strict dynastic approach to the history of Gujarat
but interweaves stories of individual kings and ambitious warriors, descriptions
of places of interest, and the oral histories of different clans in a fluid manner.
The sources set the texture of the narrative, which often oscillates between

section is based on essays entitled ‘Demonology and Popular Superstitions in Gujarat’

(Bhoot Nibandh), and an ‘Essay on Caste’ (-xƗWL 1LEDQGK), both by Dalpatram and
translated by Forbes in 1850. Both these essays were based entirely on the author’s
own experiences and native knowledge of the region. Forbes’s conclusions about the
nature of contemporary Gujarati society were thus drawn from this Brahmin poet-
scholar’s observations and experiences. Soon after its establishment in 1848, the Gujarat
Vernacular Society announced an essay competition on the topic of spirits and popular
superstitions prevalent in Gujarat. Forbes encouraged Dalpatram to send an entry, not
so much for the grand prize money of rupees one hundred and fifty but for the prestige
it would bring him if he won. After its translation by Forbes in 1850, the Bhoot Nibandh
was also translated in to Urdu and Marathi.
48 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. I, xxii.
49 Sherry Chand and Kothari, ‘Undisciplined History,’ 72.
50 Sherry Chand and Kothari, ‘Undisciplined History,’ 72.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 147

the formal scholarly tones of the author’s own writing and the more informal
voice of the bard or a Jain narrative; it also contains occasional quotes from
Persian histories. Legends about Rajput warriors are often interspersed with
descriptions of towns and cities within Gujarat in which history, mythology,
and Forbes’s own observations about the place are vividly woven together. In
this regard, the narrative reflects a differential temporality, where different
time periods along with their varying mythologies, histories, and territories
appear to have seamlessly merged with one another. Interestingly, however,
the fluidities and multiplicities contained in 5ƗV 0ƗOƗappear to jostle with the
aims of colonial power as well as contribute to the colonial knowledge-building
processes that were at work in this period.51
As a colonial officer who was concerned with revenue settlement and the
control, pacification, and administration of areas that were not entirely under
British influence, Forbes was certainly creating a compendium useful for the
future generations of Englishmen who he imagined would serve in Gujarat. Like
his predecessors, such as Tod or Mckenzie, he understood that his endeavour to
gather and compile the information about the people of the region was directly
linked to the needs of colonial government that was trying to establish its control
in different parts of the subcontinent. Forbes’s own views are also not devoid
of the impulses of his time, which sought to present a picture of a homogenous
region with social and political institutions that could be compared against
those at home. However, a close reading of the text also reveals the tensions
that exist between Forbes’s precolonial sources and his own attempts to unite,
classify, and familiarise.
Even though the kingdoms and territories he wrote about were subsumed in
Bombay Presidency at the time, Forbes saw Gujarat as a distinct geographical
region with a distinct identity. In his view Gujarat was composed of two
portions: the continental segment, or Gujarat proper, and the peninsular
projection into the Arabian Sea. The range of hills connecting the Vindhyas
formed its eastern boundaries, while the Aravalli ranges to the north separated it
from Malwa, Mewar, and Marwar. Kachchh and its salt desert, the Rann formed
the northwestern and western boundaries, while the Gulf of Cambay constituted
Gujarat’s southern tip.52 However, while Forbes set out the boundaries in such
clear terms, his own account of the history of Rajputs gives a far more fluid
picture of the political and cultural composition of the region. In 5ƗV0ƗOƗ’s

51 For the politics of the colonial involvement in collecting empirical data about India,
see Ludden, ‘Orientalist Empiricism,’ 250–78.
52 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 3.
148 In Praise of Kings

bardic accounts, ‘Rajpoot’ warriors and kings originate, move, and settle in
parts of Gujarat, Malwa, Sindh, and Rajasthan. This becomes particularly
clear in the third book of the 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, which focuses on British relations with
the Rajputs and Marathas, Gujarat continues to appear as a cluster of small
independent states rather than a homogenous region.
For instance, according to Forbes’s bardic accounts, after the fall of
Anhilvada–Patan at the hands of Sultan ‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji, various branches of
the Vaghelas seem to have established themselves in different places, including
Gondwana in central India.53 Within Gujarat the Vaghelas also appear to have
first settled to the west of the river Sabarmati and later in areas closer to the
sultanate capitals of Ahamdabad and Champaner. Similarly, he records that a
branch of the ‘Purmâr race’ and ‘Shodhâ tribe’, consisting of some two thousand
people including their wives and children, entered Gujarat from Sindh on
account of a famine in their original homeland of Parkar.54 They established
themselves at Muli in Kathiawad and were later joined by the Jutts, who were
also from Sindh and migrated to Gujarat for the fear of the Padshah, who
coveted their leader’s daughter.55 Throughout the 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, particularly in the
accounts of the reign of the regional sultans, we encounter the movement and
settlements of numerous clans including Kolis and Kathis in different parts
of the region. The Rathods of Idar, who feature prominently throughout 5ƗV
0ƗOƗ, on the other hand, were in fact able to retain their patrimonies and also
expand and strengthen their hold in the surrounding areas, resulting in Idar
emerging as the largest kingdom in the Mahi Kantha area during Forbes’s own
time. 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ¶V accounts thus attribute the acquisition, maintenance, and
expansion of the patrimonies of the Rajput chieftains to the sultanate reign.
The fluid nature of the region is highlighted in several other accounts of
the Rajputs during the rule of the regional sultans. For instance, in the story
of Haloojee and Lugdheerjee, the Sodha Parmara chieftains from Kathiawad
(as well as in the story of Jug Dev and the Vaghela brothers, explored in the
sections to follow), we see the different levels of movement and migration that
are reflected in the bardic accounts. Briefly, the tale is as follows. The beautiful
daughter of the chief of the pastoralist Jutts who lived in Sindh was coveted
by the ‘Sindh padishah’. Consequently, the chieftain and his clansmen, ‘about
seventeen hundred in number’, moved to Muli. At the time Muli was held by two
brothers of the Sodha Paramara line, Haloojee and Lugdheerjee, who promised

53 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 275 and 281.

54 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 282–83.
55 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 347.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 149

to protect the Jutts. When the Sindhi monarch pursued the Jutts to Kathiawad,
however, the Paramaras could not keep their promise because one of their own
men betrayed them, and also because they lacked a proper protective fort.56
The Jutt girl was forced to flee and eventually buried herself alive in a nearby
village while Haloojee was imprisoned by the Sindhi army. Lugdheerjee at this
point sought the aid of the ‘King of Goozerat’, who, at the time, was Sultan
Mahmud Begada. The Sultan’s armies arrived from Ahmadabad and the ruler
of Sindh was successfully defeated in Bhuj. Haloojee converted to Islam and
was offered lands by the Sultan within the sultanate territories. But Haloojee
instead asked for the wasted lands of Ranpur, which had once belonged to his
uncle, a Gohil, ‘and had been ploughed and sown with salt by the padishah’.57
Lugdheerjee, on the other hand, ‘retained his religion and the Moolee estate
acquired by his ancestors’.58 The Jutts, we are told, treat the Muli Paramaras
with a ‘peculiar respect’ in remembrance of the protection afforded to them.59
In this account, and in several others presented in 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, the landscape
is not a homogeneous unified region, but rather one of mobility, where different
groups seeking service, protection or lands moved around freely. In the story
of Haloojee and Lugdheerjee we also witness a freedom in the choices the
brothers are able to make in embracing Islam or not in return for the Sultan’s
help. Forbes’s idea of the region appears then to be led by his own colonial
cartographic impulses to unite and categorise it in recognisable terms. In this
regard as in other aspects, his sources reveal a somewhat different story.
The temporal contours of 5ƗV 0ƗOƗare bound within the period between
what Forbes calls ‘ancient India’ and the arrival of the British in Gujarat.
This period, in Forbes’s view, was ‘more practically connected to present
Hindoostan’ than the previous one.60 In the preface he defines the scope of
the book with the following words:

It is to the story of the city of Wun Raj [Anhilvad Patan], and of the Hindoo
principalities and chieftainships which sprang up amidst its ruins, and which
have many of them, continued in existence to the present day, that the reader’s
attention is in the present work invited.61

56 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, 348

57 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, 348
58 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, 348
59 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, 350
60 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, ix–xx
61 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, ix–xx.
150 In Praise of Kings

Forbes finds further justification for this choice of subject in the fact that

any stranger who is for any length of time resident in the land of the Hindoos,
can hardly fail to notice many customs and usages of that people which are
evidently relics of society not long gone … The very remains of the Moslem
power themselves are most strongly impressed by the character of the race
whose rule was supplanted by that of the crescent …62

In his study of this ‘middle’ period, Forbes finds a continuity of social and
political traditions that are of utmost significance for his interpretation of the
history of the region. Forbes does not have an explicit term for the period that
lies between the ‘ancient’ and ‘modern.’ He does, however, draw extensively,
though intermittently, on terminology from the feudal formations of medieval
Europe to describe land and military relations in the region under scrutiny.
The ‘story of the city of Wun Râj’ is viewed by Forbes as the most glorious
part of the region’s pre-British history. While he is wary of falling prey to
the exaggerations of its chroniclers, he himself sees the reign of the city’s
various dynasties, namely the Chavadas, Chaulukyas, and the Vaghelas, as a
time of prosperity and grandeur, which were coveted by Muslim invaders like
‘Mohumed Ghoree’ and later ‘Allh-ood-din Khyljy’. His understanding of the
role of these dynasties in the history of the region is clearly reflected in his
suggestion that at the time when the ‘Chowrâ dynasty, under Wun Râj, first
established itself at Unhilwârâ, the country of Goozerat was destitute of any
other inhabitants than the wild aboriginal tribes.’63 However, in the reign of the
last of the Chaulukya or Solanki princes, he continues, ‘we behold the same
tract of country united under one strong government, studded with wealthy
townships, adorned with populous cities, fenced with strong fortresses.’64
Forbes clearly sees these rulers as the founders of all that is to be admired in
the region’s past.
Further, according to Forbes, the stability and prosperity that was brought
by the rulers of Anhilvada was never to be found in the dynasties that followed.
He writes:

Never was she [Gujarat] for one hour not unwounded by domestic strife, from
that day on which the sceptre was struck from the hand of Bheem Dev II, to

62 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, ix.

63 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, 248.
64 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, 248–49.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 151

the long distant period when Rajpoot, Moslem, and Mahratta at length agreed
to sheathe their swords, and repose for the just arbitrement of their quarrels on
the power, the wisdom, and the faith of the sea-dwelling stranger.65

‘Ala’ al-Din’s raids to Patan and Somanatha mark the final blow to the glory
of Vanraj’s great city. Forbes is certainly disapproving of the ‘Moslem sword,
then wielded by the furious hands of Allah-ood-deen, whose patronymic Khyljy
is familiar to every peasant of Goozerat, under the substituted form “Khoonee,”
or “the murderer.”’66 Yet, even though he expresses his disapproval for this
sultan and his lieutenants, his views about the period that follows betray a
sense of ambiguity. The arrival of the Delhi sultans to the city of Anhilvada
exhibits, according to him, a sense of anarchy. The chieftains that maintained
their independence and form the subject of his study are also objects of his
admiration. Forbes does repeatedly mention the fact that despite every attempt
by ‘Ala’ al-Din and his successors, the regional sultans, the Mughals, and the
hated Marathas, these chieftains managed to continue as independent rulers
of their territories.
Despite his disapproval of the ‘Moslem sword’, Forbes is not critical of the
dynasty of the regional sultans whose rule follows the period of disorganisation.
He compares Ahmad Shah to Wan Raj, ancestor of the Chaulukya dynasty,
calling him the ‘founder of a new and brilliant dynasty’; Mahmud Begada
to Siddharaja Jayasimha, considered one of the most prominent Chaulukya
kings.67 His account of many of their exploits is based directly on the 0LU¶ƗWL
$‫ۊ‬PDGƯ, but the dominating voice in these chapters is still that of the ‘bardic
authority’ and their tales of the chieftains. As such, the influence of the sultans’
rule is of course audible, but is somewhat muted by the colonial officer’s
reliance on the accounts of the Bhats and Charans. For Forbes, the period of
sultanate rule is dominated by the movements of different ‘clans’ and chieftains
trying to establish or maritime their control over agricultural lands, clusters of
villages, or as is the case of the Gohils of Peerum, over parts of the maritime
territory. It is this aspect of Gujarat’s pre-British history that dominates 5ƗV
0ƗOƗ’s depiction of the region and which, according to Forbes, continues until
the settlements of ‘native’ chiefs of these lands by the British.

65 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, 249.

66 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol.1, 226.
67 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 249. Of Begada he says, ‘…he inscribes upon the rolls of fame
a title almost as glorious as the Lion of Unhilpoor’.
152 In Praise of Kings

‘Rajputs’ in 5ƗV0ƗOƗ
Forbes’s account of the precolonial history of Gujarat, like the text itself,
appears to be a patchwork of different ideas merged with the colonial writer’s
own observations and prejudices. As a colonial writer of the pre-1857 era,
Forbes was perhaps not as explicitly concerned with the question of sovereignty
as his successors would be and does not engage in an elaborate discussion
of either this question or the nature of kingship.68 Despite giving precedence
to the ‘Hindoo’ chieftains in his account of Gujarat’s history and society, he
says little about the origins of the group as a whole in the 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ Unlike
James Tod, whose work he draws on extensively, Forbes does not explicitly
mention a common origin theory or myth in relation to the chieftains. He often
uses the categories ‘Rajpoot’ and ‘Kshutrees’ (Kshatriyas) interchangeably
and does not make their meaning explicit. The two terms refer, throughout
the book, to any non-Muslim chieftain or man of arms, and Forbes does not
differentiate them by their origins or descent. The Chaulukya kings, whose
chronicles and inscriptions make no mention of the term Rajput, are thus
seamlessly equated with several lineages like the Gohils, Parmars, or Kathis
of the later period, who were itinerant pastoralist groups that subsequently
came to settle in the region.
On the basis of the collection of Jain chronicles, the 5DWDQ0ƗOƗ, and some
inscriptional records, Forbes evaluates, in his narrative, the position of the king
or ‘sovereign’ in the days of Anhilvada’s glory. The ‘sovereign,’ according to
Forbes, is undoubtedly the most prominent figure in these records, ‘supported
by the white-robed priests of the Jain religion, or the Brahmanical wearers of the
badge of regeneration.’69 He imagines the ‘sovereign’ as the centre of a ‘warlike
circle’, in which, after him and his priests, ‘stand the warriors of Rajpoot race
in ringed tunics’ and the ‘Wâneea [mercantile class], Muntreshwurs [ministers],
already in professions puritans of peace, but not enough drained of their fiery
Kshutree blood.’70 These are followed by the ‘half-warrior’ minstrels and
bards, and then the ‘peaceful cultivators’, and finally the ‘wild aborigines of
the ravine and of the hill’.71 Forbes had little else to say about the nature of the
sovereign and his kingdom and also does not engage in a discussion of the court
and administrative hierarchies of the later ‘Rajpoot’ chieftains in the region.

68 Inden, Imagining India, 176.

69 Forbes, 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 230.
70 Forbes, 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 230–31.
71 Forbes, 5ƗV0ƗOD, vol. 1, 231.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 153

The term ‘Rajpoot’ in fact appears to have multiple meanings in the text.
The tale of ‘Jug Dev Purmâr’, who leaves his maternal home in order to seek
his fortunes in a foreign land, represents a typical picture of ‘Rajpoot life’
for Forbes, and, offers an example of the multiple meanings the term Rajpoot
holds in 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ. This story occupies comparatively long chapter in Book
I and is based on a ‘bardic’ account rather than the written Jain texts or the
5DWDQ0ƗOƗ, which Forbes otherwise frequently draws on in this section of
his narrative. The tale, very briefly, is as follows: Jug Dev, the son of king
Oodayaditya’s unfavoured wife, is insulted on several occasions by the favorite
queen. As such, he leaves his mother’s home to find opportunity in a foreign
land. ‘I will get service somewhere,’ he reassures his mother, a woman of the
Solanki lineage.72 After killing a couple of tigers who had become a menace
to travellers and cows, and acquiring a retinue of loyal ‘Rajpoots’, horses, and
elephants, Jug Dev eventually acquires lands and a wife in return for offering
his loyal service to Siddharaja, the King of Patan.73 Jug Dev is thus a fearless,
chivalrous, and loyal warrior embodying all the qualities of a ‘Rajpoot’, and his
story is often told by the bards to inspire their patrons. The Rajputs, defined
in Forbes’s narrative by such bardic accounts, are men of arms who moved
around the region in search of land and patronage and were ever-ready to lay
down their lives in battle.
The story of Jug Dev shows how Forbes, inspired by bardic accounts,
represented the ideal Rajput. In this tale, the word ‘Rajpoot’ first refers to
Jug Dev himself as a warrior. Second, it refers to his father, Oodayaditya,
the Paramara king of Dhara. Third, it is also used for the men who go on to
constitute his retinue, which he acquires en route to the Solanki kingdom.
Finally, the category also seems to suggest that ‘Rajpoots’, like Jug Dev, were
also itinerant men with access to weaponry, looking to settle or escape a
contingent situation in return for military service. Money, elephants, horses,
women, and men were the kind fortunes in store for these warriors. Instead of
defining ‘Rajpoots’ in terms of lineage or courtly belonging, Forbes highlights
personal prowess. In this respect, he differs sharply from James Tod, whose
monumental work on the Rajputs of Rajasthan, published before the 5ƗV0ƗOƗ,
puts great emphasis on clan exclusivity and genealogy.
Forbes is similarly unconcerned with the delineation of the different clans
and their individual characteristics in the 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ. The status of mixed groups

72 The king’s favourite wife belonged to the Vaghela lineage, which is also associated
with Gujarat.
73 Forbes, 5ƗV0ƗOƗ vol. 1, 117–49.
154 In Praise of Kings

such as the ‘Gohil Koolis’, whose ancestry involved the intermarriage between
a Gohil Rajput and Bheel woman, is also not explained.74 Yet there is an implicit
assumption in his writings that the Hindu chieftains of Gujarat were closely
linked to the Chaulukyas, many branches of the former descending directly
from the Chaulukyas or having loyally served them, ‘never reverted to their
natural relations to the paramount power which they bore during the sway of
the dynasty of Unhilwârâ’ (Anhilvada).75 Like many other writers of his time,
Forbes also does not clearly articulate the difference between how he is using
terms like clan, tribe, or race,76 each of which he uses to describe different
groups or families of chieftains, thus leaving the actual nature of their social
structure somewhat ambiguous to the reader. One reason for Forbes’s unclear
articulation of the origin and nature of the chieftains as a social group perhaps
lies in their diverse histories and spheres of influence. Although he does not
write about the origins of most of them, his account gives the reader a sense
of the movements and migrations that so characterised their society.
An important and related feature of ‘Rajpoot-hood’ and political relations
between the sultans and the chieftains during sultanate dominion, according
to Forbes’s narrative, was the institution of ‘outlawry’, or what he calls
Bâhirwutoo.77 The bardic accounts that Forbes uses in his descriptions of this
period speak of outlawry as the mode of protest adopted by the chieftains who
had lost their lands to the sultans to exert pressure and have them returned.
Being well-acquainted with the countryside, these men would seek asylum
outside the village settlements in forested tracts and engage in plunder and
pillaging. The somewhat complex story of the brothers Wurhojee and Jetojee,
who belonged to the Vaghela lineage that had ruled over Anhilvada–Patan
prior to the entry of the Delhi sultans into the region is related in 5ƗV0ƗOƗ. It
offers one example of how the outlaws or baharvatiyas functioned according
to Forbes’s bards.78 When the Gujarat sultan Ahmad Shah took over their
lands, these two brothers moved their families to a pair of nearby villages and
became outlaws plundering and ravaging the areas around Ahmadabad with
their bands of horsemen. All of sultan Ahmad’s attempts to apprehend them
failed. However, with no reliable means of subsistence at hand, the two brothers

74 Forbes, 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 346.

75 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗvol. 1, 275–76. Emphasis mine.
76 Bayly, ‘Caste and “Race” in the Colonial Ethnography of India,’ 175.
77 Modern Gujarati: baharvatu. The word is derived from the combination of the words
bahar or outside and vat or path.
78 For all the details of the tale see Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 316–23.
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 155

gradually began to lose their followers. One night, while on an expedition, one
of their men passed by a group of ‘Rajpoots’ near a water tank led by a certain
Bhundaree Ukho. Catching site of the man, the peasant who drove this Ukho’s
cart said, ‘Sir! I think the outlaws are come to the tank; we had better move on
quickly.’79 Ukho replied, ‘Fear them not, there is no Rajpoot among them like
me, or they would have recovered their gras within three days.’80 On hearing
this, the brothers decided to take this man up on the challenge and took him
along on a raid of Ahmadabad.
In Ahmadabad, the capital of the sultans, it was a Friday, and the sultan’s
queen, or begum, and the other ladies of the palace were being escorted to a
holy tomb near Sarkhej on the outskirts of Ahmadabad. At the tomb, the escorts
remained at a short distance while the ladies proceeded alone to pay their
respects to the saint. Seeing this as an opportunity, Ukho said to the brothers,
‘Unless you seize these ladies, you will not recover your lands.’81 The horsemen
surrounded the women. Upon being asked by the queen who they were, the
brothers said they were Wurho and Jeto, who, having lost their hereditary
estates, were determined to die and therefore would attack the queen’s retinue.
Realising that such an act would result in losing her honour and hence her life,
the queen promised the men that she would procure the recovery of their lands
immediately. Then, forbidding her escorts from attacking them, she proceeded
to Ahmadabad and sat ‘moodily in the palace, forbidding the lights to be lit.’82
Being apprised of the situation, the sultan came to her and asked her what had
happened. She told him, saying, ‘I have given my oath, therefore, you must
send for the two brothers, and reinstate them in their lands. If they had driven
off my carriage, where would have been the sultan’s honour?”83 The Sultan
then invited the brothers, who had been waiting on the outskirts of the city,
and promised them dresses of honour. They were given five hundred villages,
which they equally divided between themselves. In turn, they gave the sultan
their sister in marriage. The brothers were thus incorporated into sultanate
polity, although according to another bardic story that follows in the text, they
were despised by other Hindu chieftains.84 While in the case of Haloojee we
find one of two Rajput brothers establishing an affinity with the sultans by

79 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗvol. 1, 317.

80 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗvol. 1, 317.
81 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗvol. 1, 317.
82 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 318.
83 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 318.
84 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 1, 320.
156 In Praise of Kings

embracing Islam, here we find a kinship bond created between them through
marriage. Forbes’s account of the sultanate of Gujarat mentions several other
instances of outlawry resulting from the sultans’ attempts to make claims over
the chieftains’ lands or honour and the negotiations and accommodations that
may have followed.
Despite devoting pages of tales to courageous and enterprising bands of
warriors in the first three books of the 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, by the fourth book, Forbes
has surprisingly little praise for the contemporary condition of his protagonists.
This account projects the heroes of the earlier books as leading an ‘indolent
and monotonous life’ in times of peace.85 The Rajputs’ primary activities
seem to be sleeping, eating, entertainment, and drug-taking. After Forbes’s
afternoon siesta, ‘which lasts until about three in the afternoon’, the Rajput
chieftain ‘prepares for the great business of the day, the distribution of the red
cup, kusoomba or opium.’86
In Forbes’s account the meaning of the idea of the Rajput thus exhibits the
amorphous picture that emerged from his sources. Here, the Rajputs, are akin
to the open-ended social category that constituted the military labour market
in which marriage alliances and military service propelled the rise in status of
these upwardly mobile groups. Furthermore, in this view, the Rajputs and sultans
are not always at odds but in fact part of the evolving system of patronage in
the fifteenth century.

Conclusion
Today, Alexander Forbes’s 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ has become the ‘classic’ text on Gujarat’s
history, a starting point for anyone wishing to study the region’s past. However,
what appears to be a definitive work was, as I have shown, formulated through
a complex process of interaction between Forbes, Dalpatram and the Bhats
and Charans. All these actors were representatives of important constituents of
nineteenth-century Gujarati society, a society that was reconfiguring itself in
response to the new order of politics and patronage introduced by the British,
marking the end of the supremacy of the Rajput system and decades of turmoil
under the Marathas.87

85 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 2, 261.

86 Forbes, 5ƗV 0ƗOƗ, vol. 2, 50–65.
87 For Forbes’s attempts to ‘revive’ the institution of the Bhats and Charans in the new
context, see Kapadia, ‘Alexander Forbes and the Making of a Regional History.’
 5ƗV0ƗOƗ 157

In his narrative of the region’s history, Forbes foregrounded the role of

Rajput chieftains. While, on one hand, his approach follows from the British
empire’s bias against imperial Muslim rulers that preceded their own rule,
Forbes’s account displays a more nuanced view of the fifteenth-century and the
regional Muzaffarid sultanate that had dominated the region. Furthermore, in
Forbes’s imagination, it was the rise of the Rajput chieftains and their warrior
identities that ultimately shaped the region’s history. Forbes’s re-invention of the
fifteenth century as a key moment in this history results from his understanding
of the period as one produced through the interactions between sultans and
chieftains and the poets who sang of them. Thus, while contemporary Bhats
and Charans had been nearly silenced under the British administration, their
ancestor’s voices remained audible in the first colonial history of Gujarat.
Forbes’s idea of the history of Gujarat as one shaped by these Rajput
chieftains and their interactions with sultans, however, did not find popularity
among the region’s nationalist elite writers in the decades that followed. Instead,
for this elite, who were a product to the new colonial education system, it was the
Chaulukyas and the Vaghelas of Anhilvada–Patan who were deemed Gujarat’s
legitimate ‘Rajputs’ and the true upholders of Gujarat’s past political ‘glory’.
158 In Praise of Kings

Conclusion

Two conventional ideas have coloured our view of Gujarat’s pre-modern

history: first, as in the rest of the subcontinent, that the fifteenth century, a
century of transitions, was merely a twilight during which nothing noteworthy
happened; and second, that the period in which the regional Muslim sultanate
(and later the Mughals) ruled, brought any regional creative and political
processes to an abrupt end. As the influential politician K. M. Munshi wrote,
µWKHVHGHYHORSPHQWVKDGDQHJDWLYHLQIOXHQFHRQWKHOLWHUDWXUHRI*XMDUƗt’ and
the literary productions in this era ‘not only ignored political conditions, but
provided easy ways to forget them’.1 This narrative of the Chaulukya–Vaghelas
being the last bastions of Gujarat’s ‘Hindu’ culture, before it was destroyed by
‘Muslim’ domination, continues to shape the popular imagination of the region’s
history. Munshi’s views, which portray the history of pre-modern Gujarat in
terms of religious binaries rather than as a period of complex collaborations,
have had a lasting impact on the region’s popular imagination as well.2
In this book, I have tried to provide a corrective to this surprisingly persistent
view that has shaped the understanding of Gujarat’s and India’s pre-modern
history. I have shown that periods of change and flux, which do not necessarily
coincide with large empires, may be productively examined by focusing on

1 Munshi, *XMDUƗWDDQG,WV/LWHUDWXUH, 112.

2 For instance, in the popular and superbly produced TV commercials recently sponsored
by the Gujarat Tourism Department, the historical sites related to the Muzaffarid
sultans are hardly featured. The campaign has focused instead on Hindu temples such
as Dwaraka, Somanatha, and Ambaji, or sites constructed during the Chaulukya or
pre-Chualukya centuries, such as the sun temple Modhera, the Sidhpur temple complex,
and a number of step-wells, obscuring the rich historical remains that sultanate cities
like Ahmadabad and Champaner have to offer. This is despite the fact that the ruins of
Champaner have now been designated as world heritage site by UNESCO.
 Conclusion 159

the political and cultural processes that were at work within regional and local
contexts. Literary narratives offer a particularly rich source for unpacking
this history in a century of transitions in which such texts were often the only
sources left behind by critical political actors like the local chieftains. While
the regional sultans do have a legacy of historical documents and other material
remains, literary works add of nuance to the ways in which their rule might
be understood.
The regional kingdoms and sultanates that evolved in the subcontinent in
the fifteenth century gave impetus to what has been called the ‘vernacular
millennium’, but the regional languages were not the only ones that flourished
in these new courts, or beyond them. Fifteenth-century polities, as is clear in
case of Gujarat, were multilingual and multicultural, promoting classical and
new regional styles of literature, architecture and other cultural effusions.
I have focused on one sphere of this interconnected multilingual world by
reconstructing ways in which a body of upwardly mobile regional political
elites chose to represent their positions in the political landscape, their identities
as warriors and kings, and their territorial domains during this century when
the centralising authority from Delhi had declined.
This monograph has analysed narratives in both the Dimgal tradition and
Sanskrit from the local kingdoms of the region, as well as an epic poem in
Sanskrit addressed to one of the most influential rulers of the time, Sultan
Mahmud Begada. This monograph has also explored the significance of the
fifteenth century through the work of the colonial officer, Alexander Forbes,
and in particular, his re-invention of Gujarat’s history through the study of
its warrior past. As I have shown, to compose the 5ƗV0ƗOƗ, an account of
the region’s history and society during the medieval period, Forbes collected
a vast number of legends about local chieftains that were circulating during
his years of service. With the exception of the 5D۬PDOODFKDQGD which finds
mention in surveys of Gujarati literature, the other narratives I have focused
on have never been read as products of their specific contexts. Together, these
fifteenth-century and nineteenth-century representations have shown how the
social structures and political predilections that made up this region and time
period developed and continue to evolve over time.
Through a close reading of these literary representations, I have reconstructed
ways in which political interactions between the Muzzafarid sultans and the
local chieftains who occupied different parts of the Gujarat region between c.
1394 and 1511 were portrayed in these works. The local warrior chieftains and
their clans, many of whom later styled themselves ‘Rajputs’, remained at the
160 In Praise of Kings

foundations of the regional polity as they held access to crucial material and
military resources. The sultans and the local chieftains were thus embroiled
in constant tensions and negotiations throughout sultanate rule. Establishing
and consolidating their hold over the region was a complex process for the new
sultans, who were erstwhile nobles of the Delhi sultanate. I have shown that,
contrary to the dominant perception of simple confrontation between religious
communities, the rise of both the local Rajput chieftains and the regional
sultans during the fifteenth century was part of the same continuing processes
of state building and identity formation. Their rise may be more productively
understood as an output of the military labour market and the self-fashioning
imperatives of groups who shared the common challenge of asserting their
authority; in the process, they were able to draw on shared literary and social
conventions as well. In the fifteenth century, these men were still establishing
their physical presence through forts and courts in their patrimonies and giving
their ideals and aspirations shape in the narratives discussed in the foregoing
pages. To represent their kingly ideals, the chieftains and the sultans drew on
multiple literary resources available at the regional and subcontinental levels.
The pattern of power-sharing created in the fifteenth century was to have
a lasting effect on the region, as many of the local chieftains who managed to
establish their strongholds in their patrimonies under sultanate rule continued
to maintain them under the Mughals, Marathas, and the British. The fact that
this was an exceptional outcome is clear from the fact that, of the five hundred
and fifty or so princely states at the time of India’s independence from British
rule in 1947, over two hundred were located in mainland Gujarat and the
peninsulas of Saurashtra/Kathiawad and Kachch.
In sum, I have argued that narratives from the courts of fifteenth-century
Gujarat, far from being devoid of political content, as Munshi suggested, were
in fact a product and reflection of their contemporary contexts. The multilingual
environment of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries produced a vast body of
literary texts in different genres that have often been dismissed as lacking in
historical value. I have tried to resurrect such a body of texts representative of
those that were produced within a growing landscape of warrior ethos in Gujarat
and all over western India. Through their use of eclectic tropes and varieties of
languages, these biographical accounts of historically known figures reflect a
continuous dialogue between the local, regional, and universal aspects of this
ever-evolving ethos. For these men, once pastoralist warriors of obscure origins
who emerged as chieftains and rulers, the patronage of such narratives was
the way in which they could inscribe themselves into history, and lay claim
 Conclusion 161

to identities that would grant them status and prestige. However, unlike the
sultans who emerged as the most successful of the warrior groups, many of
the chieftains that occupied the interstices of the regional polity did not leave
behind material remains that could tell their stories in posterity. In the absence
of such evidence, the literary compositions of poets and panegyrists were a
way to ensure their lasting legacy. These texts also become, as I have shown,
important ways in which their histories can be discerned in the absence of large
imperial documentation projects or extensive material remains.
In these narratives, the power and heroism of local chieftains, whether a
warrior like Ranmal or the protagonists of Sanskrit compositions, such as
Gangadas or Mandalik, were defined by their ability to challenge the imperial
ruler’s authority. This could be achieved, as Ranmal or Gangadas did, by
directly challenging the sultans’ claims over their territories or, as we saw
in the narrative about Mandalik, by reinforcing his position in his own local
domains. This notion of resistance is also found in Forbes’s representation of
the Rajput warrior-kings. As my reading of his work shows, the term ‘Rajput’
seems to have carried a number of meanings for the colonial officer. The
Rajput in Forbes’s narrative is a warrior in search of territories, a mercenary
soldier, as well as a king with claims to a prestigious lineage and kingdom.
The last of these, namely, the Rajput as a ‘king’, was only one part of Forbes’s
understanding of the appelation. In all three representations, however, the
notion of ‘resistance’, be it to an Islamic imperial authority or to a tyrannical
or unfair overlord (as in the case of Sunugjee, Ranmal’s ancestor, or Jug Dev
Parmar), formed a common feature of the Rajput character. Yet, as the constant
use of eclectic tropes and the sultans’ claims to an exalted Kshatriya status
show, these assertions of heroic resistance were shaped less by religion than
by immediate political contingencies.
When studied in their historical contexts, the Dimgal and Sanskrit
narratives, as well Forbes’s use of bardic materials, reflect their protagonists’
anxieties and struggles over status and sovereignty during the social and
political flux of the fifteenth century. With the decline of the Chaulukya–
Vaghela dynasties, groups such as the Rathods of Idar, the Chauhans of
Champaner, the Chudasamas of Junagadh, and several others, such as the
Parmars, Gohils, Solankis, and Vaghelas, were gradually able to consolidate
their hold over the territories they had acquired by grant or force. However,
the appearance in the region of ambitious sultanate governors like Zafar Khan,
and the subsequent establishment of the Gujarat sultanate, led to shifts in a
political scenario that was already precariously balanced. These transitions
162 In Praise of Kings

are revealed in the narratives’ representations of their protagonists and their

political worlds.
In the story of the Idar chieftain Ranmal Rathod, his panegyrist Sridhara
Vyasa’s inclusion of multiple literary and cultural elements produced a narrative
that gave an animated sense of the warrior ethos that was emerging among
chieftains at the time. This narrative integrated both the classical elements
of ‘Kshatriya-hood’ as well as the more open-ended identity of the ‘Rajput’
to which different categories of fighting men could now aspire. In the poet’s
imagination, Ranmal, the ruler of a small hill kingdom and an embodiment of
this ethos, was able to challenge the powerful sultanate armies and retain his
sovereignty over his territories. While sultanate sources constantly projected
Ranmal and later his descendants as recalcitrant landlords, Sridhara Vyasa’s
narrative in oral-performative style may have served the purpose of creating
a heroic personality and memory for the warrior chieftain and for others who
heard or read about him.
While the Sanskrit narratives about Gangadas and Mandalik, who appear
to have held larger territories than did Ranmal at the time, are composed in
the courtly kavya style and therefore draw on the classical norms of Kshatriya-
hood, they were also set firmly within the regional context of fifteenth-century
Gujarat. The notions of kingship represented in these works speak of their
protagonists in the universalised terms of kavya, and include elements from epic
and Puranic mythology. Yet the Vijayanagara poet Gangadhara’s engagement
with the specificities of politics and geography make these narratives regional
epics that would have reinforced their patrons’ moral and martial positions
within and around their own little local kingdoms. However, in the case of
Ranmal, as well as the other two chieftains, the need to maintain a firm hold
over their territories and social status through the promotion of martial values
in politically uncertain times, is apparent.
In the Sanskrit biography of Mahmud Begada it is possible to see yet another
aspect of the literary representation of regional kingship and the warrior
ethos. Mahmud, as I have demonstrated, aspired to and achieved region-wide
recognition of his authority. Apart from his successes at subduing the local
chieftains and gaining control over their resources, he was also an important
player in the wider politics of the subcontinent in which the regional rulers
now competed with one another for supremacy. As any successful Kshatriya
king of the past, Sultan Mahmud, too, wanted to benefit from the power and
prestige of Sanskrit. Unlike the narratives about the local chieftains, Mahmud’s
biography does not focus on specific details of regional history and politics,
 Conclusion 163

but instead locates its protagonist as a cakravarti, a universal, paramount king

and a Kshatriya, who has descended from the lineage of none other than the
great epic warrior, Rama. The universal values of kingship available in the
cosmopolitan Sanskrit language were harnessed to suit the Muslim sultan’s
political aspirations. Given Mahmud’s wider interest in the patronage of
religion, architecture, and other literary languages, this panegyric, along with
the monumental praise-poem of the Dohad inscription and the persistence of
Sanskrit and multilingual epigraphs, more generally, suggests that the sultans,
much like the other big and small political players, were drawing on the multiple
cultural resources that the region had to offer.
In the context of fifteenth-century Gujarat, it is possible to discern various
perceptions of kingship, all projected through patronised authorship. The
military resources of the Delhi sultans as well as their regional successors
were far greater than those of the local chieftains. Although, as the Persian
accounts of the period suggest, these men were able to negotiate terms with the
imperial authorities due to the strategic locations of their territories, none of
them could make claims over the entire region, or achieve the status of gurjara
lord. Despite their lofty claims of their protagonists’ prowess in battle against
the yavana kings, the authors of these narratives do not assign correspondingly
majestic titles to the local heros. Similarly, the protagonists’ territorial claims
also remain restricted to their own ‘little kingdoms’. The sultan in Udayaraja’s
5ƗMYLQRGDRQWKHRWKHUKDQGLVDGRUQHGZLWKWKHWLWOHVWKDWZHUHWUDGLWLRQDOO\
reserved for independent kings, with resonances whose power could be felt
beyond his own kingdom. The sultan’s pan-regional status is further reinforced
by the trope of the rulers of different kingdoms subcontinent paying him their
respects.
This book also illuminates Sanskrit’s role in Gujarat’s multilingual
environment. The small but significant body of narratives in Sanskrit, along
with the persistence of Sanskrit inscriptions in the region, makes clear that
the language continued to hold a political import. In the second millennium,
Sanskrit did not entirely lose its position as a language of power but rather was
reconfigured to suit the needs of the emerging regional elite. The differences
in the way it was used by the chieftains and the sultan are indicative of the
literati’s willingness and ability to modify classical literary devices to suit
new patrons, regardless of their religious affiliations. In the geographically
restricted regional polities, the transition to vernaculars was neither simple nor
complete. The form of Gujarati that is spoken in the region today was only
one of the many languages that were once used in this area. The use of the
164 In Praise of Kings

language in the modern state was, in fact, standardised by colonial officers

like Forbes from the nineteenth century onwards. The sources presented and
analysed here, however, show that the region had multiple linguistic traditions
that interacted closely with one another.
One reason why the fifteenth century has been overshadowed in the
historiography of pre-modern South Asia is that the Mughals are credited
with inaugurating an era of unprecedented political and cultural innovations.
However, as I have tried to show in this study of the vibrant regional context of
Gujarat, a number of new social configurations and literary expressions were
emerging under Muzaffarid rule. This study has opened up new avenues for
understanding the role of patronage and political integration at work in this
region on the eve of the trans-regional Mughal empire.
Read together, these narratives reveal a complex interaction between the two
groups, the Rajput chieftains and the sultans, and challenge the conventionally
held characterisation of the history of pre-modern Gujarat in terms of the
clash between Hindu and Muslim polities. In the narratives addressed to the
chieftains, their conflict with, and resistance to, the sultanate forces often
forms the central axis around which the story revolves. Yet, the eclectic tropes
used to describe the religious ‘Other’, and the shared conventions deployed by
poets to fashion their protagonists’ claims, complicate the picture. As inheritors
of the Delhi empire’s political legacy, the Muzaffarids promoted a rich Indo-
Muslim polity. But as rulers of a diverse region, and themselves bearers of
the legacy of a continuing Rajput warrior ethos, they were also keen to draw
on the linguistic and cultural conventions of the Sanskrit cosmopolis. In this
respect, their aspirations, and the way they expressed them poetically, mirrored
those of their Rajput rivals.
In modern India, religious binaries are once again posing a threat to the
pluralism that constituted India’s pre-modern past. The need to remember
the complex political interactions, multiple linguistic traditions, and fluidity
that made up the fifteenth century has become even more crucial in this
environment. This was, after all, the period in which a modest chieftain like
Ranmal could claim to be following in the footsteps of the Turko-Mongol
warrior, Timur, and a time in which a regional Muslim sultan’s panegyrist
could situate his earthly patron within the Puranic solar lineage, offering him
shared ancestry with the great epic warrior Rama. My study of narratives
from fifteenth-century Gujarat, I hope, is a step towards reclaiming the rich
diversity and fluidity that shaped this century of transitions.
 Bibliography 165

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 Index 177

Index

Abhiras, 80. See also pastoralists Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, 131,
Ahmadabad, 1, 6, 16, 43, 59, 76–77, 133
79, 82, 84, 85n23, 86, 91, 97, 99, Apabhramsha, 9n18, 13–14, 22, 29, 36, 49
101–102, 106, 107n12, 109, 129– Arabian Sea, 147
130, 133–134, 136–137, 144, 149, Arabic, 13–14, 32, 50, 78, 109–113
154–155 Arabs, Arab traders, 22, 33–34
Ahmadshahi dynasty, regional sultans of Aravalli ranges, 53, 147
Gujarat, 21. See also, Muzaffarid Arjundeva (Vaghela ruler, r. 1267–80), 40
sultanate/Muzaffarids aspati,or asvapati (lord of horses), 63, 70
Ahmad Shah I (sultan of Gujarat, r.1411– Aurangzeb (Mughal emperor), 5
1442), 1
Ahmednagar, 135 Bahadur Shah (sultan of Gujarat, r.1526–
Ajayapala, (Vaghela ruler), 31 1537), 104n5, 129
Akbar (Mughal emperor, r. 1556–1605), Bahamani kingdom, 105n10
21–22, 128–129 %DL+DULU ¿IWHHQWKFHQWXU\IHPDOH
‘Ala’ al-Din Khalji (Delhi sultan, r.1296– courtier), 113
1316), 7n15, 23, 23n5, 26, 33, bards, bardic, 3n6, 17, 35, 53, 67n64, 68,
33n37, 51, 66–67, 72n83, 81, 111, 74, 77, 93, 131–133, 138–143, 148,
148 151–155, 161. See also Bhats and
Ali, Daud, 87, 87n26 Charans
Ali Mohammad Khan (eighteenth-century battle(s), 45, 48–51, 53, 58, 60–64, 67, 69,
historian), 5 73, 84, 86, 88, 91–93, 109, 115–116,
Alp Khan (Khalji general), 34, 111, 121 126, 139, 153, 163
Amir Khusrau (1253–1325), 35, 52n19 -battle narratives, 72n83
Andhra, 11, 70n73 bhandars, Jain repositories, 145
Anhilvada, 6, 22, 23n5, 24–26, 28, 30, Bhats, 15, 17, 48, 78, 130–131, 138–139,
30n26, 33n37, 34, 40–41, 43–45, 143–144, 151, 156n87, 157
47, 54, 56, 111–112, 142, 148, 150– Bhats and Charans, 15, 17, 48, 78, 139,
152, 154, 157. See also Anhilvada- 143, 151, 156n87, 157
Patan Bhuj, 149
178 Index

Bayly, C. A., 132 Chahamanas of Shakhambhari, 25

begada, origin of the term, 108 chandra vamsha, lunar lineage, 9, 89
Bhadreshwar, 32 Charans, 15, 17, 48, 52–53, 78, 130–131,
Bharuch, 37, 54, 59, 61, 134 138–139, 143, 151, 156–157.
Bhima (Chaulukya king), 26n11 See also Bards, bardic; Bhats and
Bhima (Jhala chieftain), 86, 98 Charans
Bhoot Nibandh, 145n47 FKDWWƯVNXODKD, thirty-six clans, 67
Bilingual inscriptions, 14, 23, 32, 112, chieftains, 6–7, 9, 11–14, 17–19, 23, 35,
112n33 39–40, 46, 51, 53–60, 72, 74, 80,
Bombay, 1n3, 114n39, 137 82, 86, 89–90, 93–94, 98, 100–102,
Bombay Presidency, 130, 134–135, 137, 147 104, 106–109, 118, 130–131, 134–
Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic 138, 140–142, 146–151, 159–161
Society, 137 local chieftains, 10, 23, 27, 32n36, 34,
Brahma, 115–117 39, 42, 44–45, 47, 52, 75, 77–78,
Brahmin(s), 9, 18, 23, 27–28, 36, 38n58, 108, 129, 159–160
39, 52–54, 64, 71–72, 81, 88–89, Rajput chieftains, 2, 17–18, 41–42, 79,
95, 144 128, 133, 140, 152–156, 164
poet (s), 2n4, 11, 18, 46, 48, 51, 53, 65, Chattopadhyaya, B.D., 25, 70n73, 82
72n83, 78, 131, 141, 145n47 Cohn, Bernard, 132
land grants to, 28 courtly, 11, 14, 17, 23–24, 38, 41–42, 49,
Modha, 27 51, 73–74, 76, 78, 84, 87, 90, 93,
Brajbhasha, 128, 128n101, 143–144, 96, 102, 105n10, 115, 117–118, 120,
145n46 126, 131, 143, 153, 162
British, 19, 41, 130, 133–135, 138, 140–
dancing girls, 89
141, 147–151, 156–157, 160
Dalpatram Dahyabhai (nineteenth-century
Bronner, Yigal, 100
Gujarati poet), 131, 133, 137, 143–
Burhan al-Din Qutb Alam, 102
144, 144n43, 145, 145n46, 156
Cambay, 2n4, 5n13, 27, 32, 32n35–36, Deccan, 25, 33, 78n4, 96, 104n5, 106–108
33n37, 34, 36–37, 40, 59, 101, 111, Delhlavi, Hasan Sijzi (1254–1328), 36n48
147. See also Khambhat Delhi, 8, 13, 21, 23
Cambay, Gulf of, 147 Delhi sultanate, 1n3, 3, 14, 18, 21–24,
chakravarti, 9, 19 21n2, 33–39, 41, 44, 46, 51, 60,
Champaner, 12, 12n26, 15, 19, 40, 43, 62, 69, 79, 105n10, 107, 109n22,
55n24, 57, 76–77, 79–82, 80n7, 111–112, 160
84–85, 88, 90, 94–96, 100–102, Delhi sultans, 8, 18, 33–41, 59, 128, 151,
107–108, 113, 126, 129, 148, 154, 163
158n2, 161, also see Pavagadh Devaraya II (Vijayanagara king, r. 1426–
Champaner, play, 95 1447), 77. See also Pratapadevaraya
Chaulukya-Vaghela polity, 7n15, 17–18, Deviputra, 52
22–33, 36, 38, 42, 51, 75, 158, 161 digvijaya, 77, 85n23, 94, 126
Chavadas (variation Chapotkata), early Dimgal, 3, 3n6, 15, 18, 73
rulers of Gujarat, 24, 150 Dimgal, poetry in, 49, 53, 63, 65–66, 68,
Chahamanas of Nadula, 25 74, 144, 159, 161
 Index 179

Dimgal virakavya, 46, 48 Garasiyas (or grasiyas, landholders),

Dohad, Dahod, 26n10, 27, 113–115, 84–85, 91, 93
121n66, 122n74, 163 gras, 109, 155
Dohad stone inscription, 26n10, 113–115, genealogists, 48, 131, 139
121n66, 122n74, 163 genealogy, 10, 18, 28, 65, 81, 85–86, 89,
Duda (Gohil chieftain), 86, 88, 91–92. See 113–114, 119–123, 126, 153
Gohils. Godhra, 27
'XYDO5ƗQLYD.KLܲU.KƗQ, 35 Gohils, 6, 40, 80, 98, 151–152, 161
Duff, Alexander Grant, 133, 141 grants, land grants, 5n13, 9, 27–28, 36, 39,
Durga, goddess, 95 49, 81, 85
Gujarat, ecological zones, 2, 5
Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 133, 135, 137
Gujarat regions, 159
East India Company, 16, 130, 134–136
Gujarat sultans, 101, 104, 119. See also
Eaton, Richard M., 6n14, 105n10
Ahmadshahi dynasty, Muzaffarid
Farbas Gujarati Sabha, 137. See also sultanate/Muzaffarids
Gujarati Sabha Gujarat sultanate, 1, 24, 43, 113, 161
)ƗUEDVYLUDKD, 144 Gujarat Vernacular Society, 137, 145,
)ƗUEDVMLYDQFKDULWD, 136n17 145n10
Farhat al-Mulk Rasti Khan (Tughluq Gujarati language, 14, 56, 130, 137, 145,
governor of Gujarat, also known as 145n46
Mufarrih Sultani, c. 1376–1392), Gujari language, 13, 100, 102, 110
35, 44 Gujarati Sabha, 136–138
¿UPDQ, 34, 50, 60 gurjara, 25, 31n31, 66, 68, 77, 119–121,
Firuz Tughluq (sultan of Delhi, r. 1351– 123, 163
88), 44 gurjarabhumi, 123
Forbes, Alexander Kinloch, 16–19, 56, 74, gurjaradesa/gurjaradesha, 24, 31n31,121,
130–138, 132n5, 140–157, 145n46– 123–127
47, 159, 161, 164
Forbes, James, 133 Hemachandra (Jain preceptor), 13, 29
forts, 6, 12, 23, 54, 80, 87, 107–108, 123, History of the Mahrattas, 141
129, 160 Hoshang Shah (Malwa sultan), 55n24, 82
Humayun (Mughal emperor), 44n1, 129
Gaekwad, 130
Gajapati (king of Orissa), 70n73, 96–97 Idar, 40, 43–46, 45n4, 49–50, 53–56, 59–
Ganesha, diety, 95, 113 61, 69, 74, 80, 82, 85n21, 101–102,
*DQJDGKDUD ¿IWHHQWKFHQWXU\6DQVNULW 107, 144, 148, 161–162
poet), 1–2, 1n1, 11, 76–79, 83, 87, Indian Ocean, 4–5, 22, 32–33, 58, 109n22
90, 93–94, 99–101, 162 Inden, Ronald, 132
Gangadas, Chauhan king of Champaner, Indic, 2, 9–10, 13, 16–19, 22, 24, 28,
1n1, 12, 15, 76, 81–82, 84–85, 33, 42, 49, 52n19, 65–66, 73–74,
87–91, 94–97, 99–100, 126 77–78, 89, 94, 102–103, 117–119,
*D۪JDGƗVDSUDWƗSDYLOƗVDQƗ‫ܒ‬DND, 77, 123, 126–128
82–84, 83n17, 87–88, 90, 93–94, Indo-Persian, 13, 35–36, 42, 109n22,
99–101 116n49
180 Index

Indra, diety, 115–116, 124–125 73, 76, 78, 83, 87–94, 100, 102,
Islam, 8, 13, 33, 54, 101, 105, 105n45, 105, 114n39, 118, 123, 130, 152,
107, 110, 114n39, 120, 120n64, 162–163
149, 156 Jain kingship, 31–32, 31n31
Islamic, 13, 30, 32, 36–37, 77, 102, 104, puranic kinship, 31–32, 123
105n10, 131, 161 Kolff, D. H. A., 10, 46, 57
Islamicate, 105n10 Krishnaji (Brahmin poet, author of Ratan
Irschick, Eugene, 132 0ƗOƗ), 24n6, 141
Kshatriya(s), 9–10, 14–15, 18–19, 29,
Jaunpur, 21, 51
46, 57–58, 60, 64–65, 69, 73, 78,
Jain(s), 2n4, 31, 81, 111, 142, 145–147,
82, 84–85, 88–91, 93–94, 100,
152
104, 107n12, 116, 120, 126, 152,
Jain authors, 14–17, 23, 29
161–163
Jain literature, 14, 38, 141, 153
Kshatriyayisation, 82
Jain merchants, 9n18, 30, 32, 34, 38
Jain shrines, 79, 79n6 Lal, K. S., 2n5
Jain trading community, 22 ORQJ¿IWHHQWKFHQWXU\
Jinaprabhasuri (Jain scholar, c. 1261–
mahakavya(s), 73, 77, 93, 103
1333), 38
Mahi Kantha, 16, 130, 137, 141, 148
Jhala lineage, 86, 98–99
Mahmud Begada (sultan of Gujarat,
-xƗWL1LEDQGK, 145n10
r.1459–1511), 9–10, 12n26, 19,
Jug Dev Parmara, 148, 153, 161
22, 40, 43, 74, 80, 100, 103–109,
Jutts, 148–149
112n34, 113–114, 128–129, 142,
Kachchh, 1, 5, 14, 26, 32, 39, 58, 80, 108, 149, 151, 159, 162
121, 130–131, 134, 139, 143–144, Malcolm, John, 133, 135
147 Mallikarjuna (Vijayanagara king), 100
Kamphorst, Janet, 63 Malwa, 21–22, 25–29, 31n31, 40, 51, 54,
kamadhajja, 48, 60, 65 59, 61, 79, 82, 93, 96, 101, 105,
.DQKD‫ڲ‬DGHSUDEDQGKD, 49, 51, 72n83 107–108, 121, 122n74, 123–124,
Kathiawad, 1, 33n37, 34, 51, 130–131, 147–148
134, 137, 139–140, 143–144, 148– Marathas, 19, 41, 129, 131, 133–135,
149, 160. See also Saurashtra 140–141, 148, 151, 156, 160
Kashmir, 29, 115, 117, 125 variant Mahrattas, 140
kavya, 19, 28, 46, 48, 73, 77–79, 83, Maru-Gurjar, architectural style, 31
86–88, 90, 93, 98, 103, 114n39, 115, Marwar, 131, 147
118, 122, 127, 162 military labour market, 7–9, 120n64, 156,
Khambhat, 2n4, 27, 59, 111. See also 160
Cambay military service, 8, 39, 109, 153, 156
Khaza’in al Futuh, 35 0LU¶ƗWL6LNDQGDUƯ, 8n17, 44n1, 53–54,
Khatris, 120 55n24, 82, 104, 104n4, 108n13
Khengar, Ra (Chudsama ruler), 25 mleccha, 60–61, 63, 70–71
Khizr Khan (Khalji prince), 35 Mughals, 2, 11, 19, 41, 109n22, 119,
kingship, 10–11, 13–14, 18–20, 22, 24, 128–129, 131, 134, 140, 142, 151,
27–28, 41, 47, 49, 51, 53, 65–66, 158, 160, 164
 Index 181

Muhammad bin Tughluq (sultan of Delhi, Paramara(s), 25, 31n31, 51, 148–149, 153
r. 1324–1351), 34 Patel, Alka, 31n28, 37
Muhammad Qasim Firishta (Mughal-era patrons, 3, 11–17, 19, 28–29, 31n31, 41,
historian), 35, 45, 47, 53–56 53, 74, 77–78, 88, 93–94, 96, 99,
Mu‘izz al-Din Mohammad bin Sam, 26, 100–102, 105–106, 110, 16n49,
26n11 121, 128–129, 132, 139, 153,
0XODMDUD ¿UVW&KDXOXN\DUXOHUFD± 162–163
96), 24–27, 30n26 patronage, 3, 14, 24, 28–29, 30n26, 32,
Mularaja II (Chaulukya ruler, r. 1176–79), 35–42, 51, 57, 57n32, 77–78, 87,
26n11 101–102, 110, 114, 118, 128n101,
multilingual, 1–2, 13, 18–19, 46, 57, 73, 144, 153, 156, 160, 163–164
102, 110, 113, 159–160, 163 SƗUDĞLNƗ (person of Persian origins), 70,
multilingualism, 128 86
Munshi, K. M., 7n15, 158, 160 pastoralists, 5, 8, 13, 23, 39, 80
musalamana, 70 Pavagadh, 79, 79n6, 94, 107, 129. See also
Muslim, 2, 7, 9–10, 13, 18–19, 32–34, Champaner
36–38, 41, 45, 50–52, 52n18, 54, Peabody, Norbert, 132
66, 70–71, 70n73, 72n83, 80, Persian, 13–14, 17–18, 22–23, 32, 35–37,
83–84, 101, 103, 105, 109, 111, 113, 38n58, 46, 50, 52n18–19, 53–55,
114n39, 119–120, 120n64, 150, 69, 70, 73, 78, 78n4, 85n21, 86,
157–158, 163–164 100, 100n71, 102, 104–105, 107,
Muzaffarid sultanate/Muzaffarids, 37n56, 109–110, 112–113, 118, 128, 131,
77, 157. See also Ahmadshahi 141, 147, 163
dynasty Pollock, Sheldon, 24, 28, 78
Munhata Nainsi, 74, 131 poet(s), 1–3, 2n4, 3n6, 7, 11–12, 14–19,
0X]DIIDU6KDK ¿UVWVXOWDQRI*XMDUDWU 28–29, 31, 35–36, 41, 46–51, 53,
1407–1410), 4–5, 21–22, 46, 53, 57, 59, 61–68, 70–71, 73–74,
56–57, 72, 107, 112, 119–121, 76–78, 83–88, 91, 93, 95–96,
121n66 98–101, 103, 110, 114–116, 114n39,
1ƗEKLQDQGDQDMLQRGGKƗUDSUDEDQGKD, 34 117–122, 126–127, 130–131, 133,
Narasimha Maheta (Gujarati poet), 14, 110 138–139, 141, 143–144, 145,
Nasir al-Din Muhammad Shah III (sultan 145n46, 157, 161–162, 164
of Delhi, r. 1390–1393), 44 poetry, 14, 17–19, 29, 46, 48, 63, 77–78,
Nasir al-Din Mahmud Shah (r. 1394– 83, 87–88, 116, 118, 122, 124–125,
1413), 45 127, 142–144, 145n46
3UDEDQGKDFLQWƗPD۬L 24n6, 31n31, 141
oral tradition, 15, 17–18, 48, 50–51, 76, Prakrit, 13, 22, 29, 36, 83, 99
78–79, 102, 130–132, 142–143, 146
Pratapadevaraya (Vijayanagara king, r.
Oriental Memoirs, 141
1426–1447), 1, 1n2, 77, 83. See also
outlaw, outlawry, 154–156
Devaraya IIs
Pabuji, 63–64 Princely States, 19, 41, 131, 133–134, 160
Padmanabha, 49, 51, 72n83 Puranic deities, 9–10, 13, 28, 41, 46, 65,
paliya, hero-stones, 81 87, 113, 146
182 Index

Qutb al-Din Ahmad I (sultan of Gujarat, r. 122–124, 127–128, 131, 137, 159,
1451–1458), 112 161–164
Qutb al-Din Aybeg, 26 Sanskrit inscriptions, 28, 32n36, 36, 39,
41, 70n73, 81, 111–113, 121n66,
5ƗMDYLQRGD, 100, 103–128. See also ĝUƯ
163
0DKPnjGDVXUDWUƗ۬DFDULWD
Sanskrit kavya, 83, 122
Rajput(s), 2–3, 5, 7–11, 15–20, 24, 33n37,
Sarasvati (goddess of learning), 9, 29,
39–42, 47, 49, 52n19, 56, 64, 77,
114–117, 124, 127
79–80, 84, 89, 93, 95, 110, 120,
Sarkhej, 129, 155
123, 128–131, 133, 138, 140–141,
Sheikh Ahmad Khattu, 129
147–148, 152–157, 159–162, 164
Sheikh, Samira, 4n8, 80, 109
Rajpoot(s), 56, 130, 140, 148, 151–155
Saurashtra, 1, 5–6, 10, 12, 14, 21, 25–26,
Rajput clans, 67, 67n64, 139
33–34, 39–40, 45n4, 58, 77, 80,
Rajputization, 39, 57
86, 92, 98, 130, 160. See also
Rajasthan, 3n6, 8n17, 10, 22, 25–27, 40,
Kathiawad
49, 54, 56–57, 59, 67, 79, 81, 108,
Shah Jahan (Mughal emperor), 5
120n64, 131, 148, 153
Shripala, poet at Chaulukya court
5D۬PDOODFKDQGD, 17–18, 44–75
of Jayasimha Siddharaja and
Ranthambhor, 66, 81, 89
Kumarapala, 28
Rathod, Ranmal, 10, 53, 162
Siddhapur, 26, 30n26, 158n2
Rathods, 6, 40, 43, 47, 56, 74, 80, 148, 161
Siddharaja Jayasimha (Chaulukya ruler,
rasa, 84, 146
r. 1094–1143), 26, 26n10, 28, 29,
rasau, 146
30n26, 143, 151, 153
5ƗV0ƗOƗRUWKH+LQGRR$QQDOVRIWKH
Siddhahemacandra, 29
Province of Goozerat in Western
Shiva, 30, 30n26, 63, 72n83, 94–95
India, 17, 19–20, 129–157, 159
Sikandar Shah (Lodi Sultan of Delhi), 5
chieftains and sultans, 146–151
Shulman, David, 100
making of, 140–146
Sikandar bin Muhammad, also known
Rajputs in, 152–156
as Sikandar Manjhu (seventeenth-
5DWDQ0ƗOƗ, 141, 152–153
century historian), 8n17, 9, 44,
regional polities, 96, 163
44n1, 54, 104, 108n13
Rewa Kantha, 134
Solanki, 56, 150, 153, 161
Rudramahalaya, 26, 30n26
sovereignty, 51, 69, 94, 117, 126–127, 130,
Sadhu, also known as Wajih al-Mulk, 4, 135, 152, 161–162
8, 44 Somanatha, 2n4, 23, 26n11, 27, 30, 30n26,
Samma lineage, 80 32–33, 40, 54, 67, 80, 151, 158n2
Samara Sah, 34 ĝUƯPDKDPnjGDVXUDWUƗ۬DFDULWD, 103
6DPUƗUƗVX, 34, 38 Sridhara Vyasa, poet, 12, 18, 46–50, 53,
Sanskrit, 1n1, 2–3, 9, 13–16, 18–19, 22– 56–59, 61–62, 64, 66–71, 73, 78,
24, 28–30, 32, 32n36, 36–37, 39, 162
41, 46–49, 51, 52n18–19, 53, 63– State of Idar, 56
66, 68, 70–71, 73–74, 76–78, 81, 6X¿ V ±±
83–87, 93–94, 99–100, 102–103, 109–110, 129
105, 105n10, 110–113, 118, 121n66, Surat, 59, 134, 137
 Index 183

surya vamsha, solar lineage, 9–10, 104, vernacular millennium, 159

120, 164 Vijayanagara, 1, 3, 11, 76–77, 83, 85n23,
96, 100–101, 105n10, 162
Taghi (fourteenth-century rebel), 34
virakavya, 46, 48
Tank (lineage of the Gujarat sultans), 8–9,
Vishnu, 86, 89, 97, 103, 116, 122
120
Vishaldeva (thirteenth-century Vaghela
7D¶UƯNKL)LUnj]6KƗKƯBarani, 35
king), 32
7Ɨ¶UƯNKL0D‫ۊ‬PnjG6KƗKƯ, 104n5
9LYLGKDWƯUWKDNDOSD, 38
7ƗUƯNKLVDOƗ‫ܒ‬ƯQL*XMDUƗW, 104n5
Tejahpala, (thirteenth-century Vaghela warrior(s), 3, 6, 7n15, 9–18, 23, 32, 40,
minister), 30, 32 45–58, 61–69, 72–76, 78, 82, 88–
Thanesar, 8 91, 98, 102, 104, 118–119, 120n64,
Timur, 3–4, 21, 54–55, 68, 73, 164 122–123, 127, 130, 132, 139–140,
Tod, James, 131, 133, 147, 152–153 146–148, 152–153, 156–157,
trade, 4–6, 25–27, 33–34, 39, 41, 58, 159–164
133–134 warrior ethos, 10–11, 15, 51n17, 57, 74,
trade routes, 5–6, 23, 26–27, 34, 39, 57, 102, 160, 162, 164
59, 79, 107 Watson, J. W., , 132, 143
traga, self-harm by Bhats and Charans, 139 Wajih al-Mulk, 4, 8, 44. See also Sadhu
Trautmann, Thomas, 132 Wagoner, Philip B., 6n14, 105n10, 132
Tripathi, Manasukhram Suryarama, 136 western India, 3, 5, 15, 27, 31n28, 46, 48,
tulput, 108 50, 57, 64, 67, 70, 74, 82, 127, 130,
Turkic, 7, 16, 23, 70n73 133, 135, 139, 144, 160
women, 18, 32, 49, 65, 70–71, 79n6, 81,
8GD\DUDMD ¿IWHHQWKFHQWXU\6DQVNULW
87, 89–90, 99, 103, 104n4, 116,
poet), 100, 103, 113–114, 114n39,
124–125, 153, 155
115–117, 119–123, 126–127, 163
Ulugh Khan (Khalji general), 37n33 Yadavas of Devagiri, 51
Yadava lineage, 13
Vadhel, 86
Yashaschandra, Sitamshu, 14n31–33
Vaghelas, 7n15, 13, 18, 22–24, 26, 28, 33,
yavana(s), 19, 47–49, 61, 65, 69–71,
38, 40–42, 148, 150, 157–158, 161
72n83, 73, 84, 86, 89–90, 92, 98,
vaitalik, itninerant poet, 99–100
100, 163
vanta, part of revenue, 108
Vanthali, 40, 80 Zafar Khan (last Governor of Gujarat,
Vastupala (thirteenth-century Vaghela 1392–1407, ruled as Muzaffar Shah
courtier), 2n4, 30, 32 from 1407–10), 120, 121n66
Veraval, 32, 112, 121n66 zamindars, 40, 108
vernacular, vernacularisation, 12–14, 46, Ziya’ al-Din Barani (d. 1357), 35, 36n48
50, 52n18, 70, 77–78, 100, 120n64, Zayn al-Abidin (ruler of Kashmir, r. 1420–
163 70), 119n59