Prithviraj Chauhan, the Samrat
The Emperor in history
A: Manimugdha S Sharma
Historians say there is no evidence to show Prithviraj Chauhan ever visited Delhi. His association with Delhi happened over 300 years later, as the city slowly became the centre of Muslim power
Prithviraja III (1166-1192 CE), popularly known as Prithviraj Chauhan, is, to many Indians, a
cultural hero: a hero who personifies the best of a glorious Hindu past, and whose defeat
and death unleashed an Islamic age. Indeed, much of the understanding about him and
his life has been a result of centuries of mythmaking and addition of several layers to his
historical memory. But most of what Indians today know about him comes from stories
that keep the Prithviraja Raso narrative as guide. Historians believe that the Raso , an epic
poem whose authorship is credited to Chand Bardai, is a late 16th-century text composed
in the Mughal era.
Prithviraj in contemporary accounts
But according to all contemporary accounts, Prithviraj was the Chahamana or Chauhan king of Ajmer, or Ajaya Meru, as the Prithviraja Vijaya puts it. This text, also in the mahakavya genre as the later Raso , was either produced at his court or during his rule, but certainly before his disastrous defeat at Tarain to the army of Sultan Muizuddin Muhammad bin Sam of Ghur in 1192. The Indo-Persian works Tabakat-i Nasiri and Taj ulMa’asir say the same. Both these texts say that after defeating the Chauhan king, the Ghurid forces went to take over his “seat of government” in Ajmer. Delhi wasn’t taken until a year after the event— 1193 CE.
The Tabakat-i Nasiri of Minhaj us-Siraj Juzjani says that in the first battle of Tarain in 1191, the Ghurids were routed by the Chauhan king and the sultan himself was severely wounded when the king of Delhi, Gobind Rai, hit him with a lance. Clearly, the king of Delhi was a different person in this account and was friendly to Prithviraj Chauhan.
In the second battle, Juzjani says, the Ghurid mounted archers had a devastating effect on Chauhan’s forces (following the same Central Asian tactics that Babur would repeat over 300 years later). When defeat became imminent, Prithviraj dismounted from his elephant and fled the battlefield on a horse. But he was chased down and captured and executed, Juzjani writes, adding that the Delhi king Gobind Rai, too, fell and his body was identified by the sultan himself.
Prithviraj Raso is a Brajbhasha epic poem about the life of the 12th century Indian king Prithviraj Chauhan written by Chand Bardai
But the Taj ul-Ma’asir by Hasan Nizami differs. It says that Prithviraj was captured and
reinstalled in Ajmer as a vassal king but was executed later as he rebelled. His son
Gobindaraj was then installed as the Ghurid protégé on the Ajmer throne, but was soon
upstaged by Har-raj, his uncle and brother of Prithviraj. Gobindaraj then set up a base in
Ranthambore, but his uncle attacked him there too. He was ultimately saved by a Delhi
army led by Qutbuddin Aybeg.
What historians say about him
Historians like Cynthia Talbot say that there is no ground or evidence whatsoever to assume that Prithviraj Chauhan ever visited Delhi or took up residence in the city. But his association with Delhi started to happen slowly in the 15th century with the Hammira Mahakavya . Authored by a Jain author, this text was ambiguous about Prithviraj’s capital, but it placed the Battle of Tarain to just outside Delhi. The Raso , which came a century later, took a step further and firmly placed Prithviraj in Delhi. Why?
Talbot tries to answer this in her 2015 book, The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan and the Indian Past, 1200-2000. She says that in Prithviraj’s own lifetime, Ajmer was the dominant city while Delhi was either under a vassal king or a governor if we go by the ‘Muslim’ sources. The Gobind Rai of Tabakat-i Nasiri may have been a local king or one from the Tomar clan, but unlikely a Chauhan.
But by the time the Raso was authored in the 16th century, over 400 years had passed, and Ajmer was no longer a capital city. Besides, it had also become a sacred space of Islam because of the dargah of Sufi saint Muinuddin Chishti. So, to place Prithviraj in that place would have made no sense to a 16th-century author. But placing him in Delhi made total sense as the city by then had become the symbol of political power in India, Talbot argues.
The allure of Delhi as a power centre
After the Mongols destroyed Baghdad and with it the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258, Delhi emerged as the leading light of the Islamicate world. In fact, Delhi’s rise was concurrent with the Mongol irruption in the central lands of Islam, which resulted in people fleeing to this city. A quarter century after Sultan Iltutmish's death, Delhi had become the refuge of Islam in the east ( qubba-i Islam mashriq-igiti ) and the keeper of the Muslim faith ( hauz-I din-i Muhammadi ). The city shaped up as a centre of Muslim power under the sultans of Delhi and was acknowledged far down the south of the country as well.
In the book Taj ul-Ma’asir, Hasan Nizami says that Prithviraj Chauhan was captured and reinstalled in Ajmer as a vassal king but was executed later as he rebelled
In fact, the sultans of Delhi articulated their power so well that they started appearing in
Tamil and Telugu stories too, while their kingly titles, customs, clothes, and other symbols
of authority were picked up by non-Muslim courts in the Deccan. The Vijayanagar kings
started calling themselves suratalu (sultan) and Hindu raya suratrana (sultan among
Hindus). To legitimise their rule, they even created a foundational myth of Harihara and
Bukka Raya being sent by the Delhi sultan with the mission to rule, writes historian Phillip
B Wagoner in his article in the book, Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious
Identities in Islamicate South Asia .
The first Mughal emperor, Babur, also viewed Delhi as “the capital of all Hindustan” as he wrote in the Tuzuk-i Baburi : “The capital of all Hindustan is Delhi.” Indeed, even though emperors Akbar and Jahangir ruled from Agra, Fatehpur Sikri and Lahore, they were still referred to as ‘Dillishwar’ (lord of Delhi) in ‘Hindu’ accounts and Delhi was referred to as darul-mulk and darul-khilafat or capital of the country/seat of the empire in Indo-Persian accounts.
Muslims repeat the Raso tale too
But it isn’t that only the Hindus were retelling the Prithviraj story; Muslims were doing the same, and many times in line with the Hindus. Akbar’s court chroniclers Nizamuddin Ahmed and Abdul Qadir Badaoni rewrote the tale of Gobind Rai, but as Khand Rai/Chand Rai. They made him as powerful as Prithviraj Chauhan himself and an equal participant in battles against the Ghurid armies. Even Abu’l Fazl followed the Raso narrative in his Akbarnama . He identified Prithviraj Chauhan as the king of Delhi whose citadel he identified as Qila Rai Pithora. So far, Abu’l Fazl is the earliest known author to use this name for Prithviraj’s lost city in Delhi: a name that is still in use today. In her book, Cynthia Talbot says that in Prithviraj’s own lifetime, Ajmer was the dominant city, while Delhi was ruled by a vassal king
Talbot says the Raso manuscripts were prepared by the various houses in Rajputana that were allied to the Mughals.
So, what happens in the Raso ? It’s the story all of us in India today are familiar with. Prithviraj Chauhan, the king of Delhi, abducts Samyukta, the daughter of Jaichand Rai, which angers the old Gahadval king. He then gangs up with the Sultan and defeats and captures Prithviraj. The king is blinded and taken to Ghur where he manages to, with the help of Chand Bardai, kill the Sultan with a shabd-bhedi baan. The brave and glorious Chauhan king avenges his own defeat and bondage thus.
Medieval texts that contrast this image
Talbot gives the examples of medieval Jain texts Prabandha Cintamani and Prithviraja Prabandha , which were composed in the 14th and 15th centuries respectively, and which paint the Chauhan king as an unworthy ruler who is forever in a state of torpor and is caught by his enemy unawares.
The Prithviraja Prabandha also has a similar arrow plot like the Raso, but in this one, the sultan gets wind of the plot and installs a metal image of himself and stays away. The Colonel James Tod was the first to introduce the tag “the last Hindu emperor” for Prithviraj Chauhan
So, before the Raso , Prithviraj was pretty much a bad shot even with both his eyes open. All that changed by the 16th century. Chauhan was now a crack shot and a valiant king. This was the picture that 19th-century British author Colonel James Tod painted in his Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan as well. In fact, it was he who introduced the tag of “the last Hindu emperor” for Prithviraj Chauhan
Manimugdha S Sharma is pursuing a PhD in History at the University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, Canada, and is a fellow at the Institute of Asian Research, School of Public
Policy and Global Affairs. He is the author of the book , Allahu Akbar: Understanding the
Great Mughal in Today’s India.
B: Devdutt Pattanaik
James Tod a British officer in 19th century India declared the 12th century Rajput chief, Prithviraj Chauhan, the last Hindu Emperor (Samrat).
Tod totally ignored the Hindu Vijaynagar Empire that thrived in 15th century in Deccan region, or Ahom kingdoms of Assam, or Gajapati kingdoms of Odisha
Tod's main source was RASO, a ballad composed in 16th century but attributed to Chand Bardai who was contemporary of Prithviraj Chauhan. Here, Jaichand’s daughter, Sanyogita loved Prithviraj but Jaichand would not let them marry but the latter managed to abduct her. · Many warriors were killed. Angry, Jaichand conspired with the Muslim invader of Ghor and this led to the defeat and capture of Prithviraj. That made Jaichand a traitor. But Prithviraj managed to kill the Muslim invader with an arrow using shabd-bhed. · In ALHA, a popular epic from Bundelkhand, Prithviraj Chauhan and Jaichand are cousins (mothers are sisters) and brothers-in-law (wives are sisters), who are political rivals because Jaichand of Kannuaj wrests control of the prosperous kingdom of Mahoba. · Mahoba’s prince, Brahma, son of Parimal, marries Prithviraj Chauhan’s daughter Bela but Prithviraj refuses to let Bela go to her husband’s house. · In a series of wars that follow, Prithviraj Chauhan is responsible for the death of his own son-in-law. Bela commits sati. This inner fighting amongst Rajputs makes India vulnerable, which enables Ghurids to invade India and conquer Delhi.
In JAIN chronicles, such as Hamira Mahakavya and Prabandha Chintamani, Prithviraj Chauhan is described as a brave king who defeats the Ghorid king several times and lets him go as per Rajput tradition, but becomes too complacent. (8/10)
He is caught unawares sleeping when the Muslim king attacks again. His horse, instead of galloping starts to prance, as the stable keepers have been bribed. Thus Prithviraj Chauhan is defeated by internal politics. It has nothing to do with Jaichand. · No reference to the PARTHIAN shot that was against Rajput code of war. Muslims Turks would ride into battle on horses, then turn around giving illusion of retreat, then twist their back to shoot arrows at the chasing army. A lethal technique that won them wars.
