Jhalas of Patdi

Who he is

Title

Chief of Patdi (Jhalawad)

Since

not pinned

Born

not pinned

Confidence

low

The campaign board gives Patdi as the traditional first seat of the Jhala chiefs, who by their own story came from Sind and were granted the country by a Chaulukya king. That story is family tradition; we could not check any document. That the Jhalas are in the region by 1200 is likely, not shown.

What it holds

• Patdi and the salt-pan edge of the Little Rann
• Zinzuwada with its four carved gateways, a Chaulukya work at the salt crossing, is the royal fort near them

How it was acquired

Tradition: a grant from a Chaulukya king.

Allies and rivals

Chaulukya feudatories in name; neighbours of the Rabaris and the Kutch chiefs.

How things stand that morning

On the Rann edge, collecting the salt toll and watching the crossing to Kutch.

Wealth

Salt from the brine wells of the Little Rann, taxed where it leaves; cattle.

Military

Not documented.

Threats

• The Rann itself: the crossing is a road from November to May and nothing from June to October

Places of note

• Zinzuwada: Walled town with four gateways on the edge of the Little Rann
• Salt pans of the Rann edge: Brine wells in the Little Rann crust, worked by families out on the flat in the hot months
• The Little Rann: Salt flat: a road and a raiding lane from November to May

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Family tradition recorded by the campaign board; nothing dated.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Approximate; salt flat shown with the edge villages.

Primary sources for Chaulukya Gujarat

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Crown of Glorious Deeds, Hasan Nizami (Sadr al-Din Muhammad ibn Hasan Nizami of Nishapur) (begun about 1205 at Delhi, carried on to about 1217). The earliest history written in Muslim India and the only contemporary account of Qutb al-Din Aibak's campaigns. Read online
• The Nasirean Generations (a general history of the Muslim dynasties), Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (completed 1260 at Delhi). The fullest narrative of the Ghurid conquest of northern India. Read online
• The Nasirid Generations: a General History of the Muslim Dynasties, Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani (1259 to 1260, at Delhi). The Ghurid court's own history, by a man born in 1193 whose family served the sultans of Ghur and Ghazna. Read online
• Epigraphia Indica: inscriptions of the Chandelas, Paramaras, Gahadavalas, Chaulukyas, Senas and Eastern Gangas, Various (edited for the Archaeological Survey of India by J. Burgess, E. Hultzsch, F. Kielhorn, Sten Konow, F. W. Thomas and successors) (inscriptions of the 1180s to 1210s; the series ran from 1892). The main record series for the Hindu kingdoms of northern India around 1200. Read online
• Historical Inscriptions of Gujarat, Various (the Chaulukya and Vaghela chanceries), edited by G. V. Acharya (inscriptions of the 10th to 14th centuries; edited 1933 to 1942). The standard corpus of Gujarat's inscriptions. Read online
• A Description of the Foreign Peoples (Records of Foreign Nations), Zhao Rukuo (Zhao Rugua) (1225 at Quanzhou). The best single text for the island world around 1200, written by the superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou from merchants' reports a generation after the date. Read online
• The Book of Roger (the Pleasure of Him who Longs to Cross the Horizons), Muhammad al-Idrisi (completed 1154 at Palermo). The nearest Arabic geography in time to 1200 for the Indian Ocean. Read online
• The History of India as Told by its Own Historians: the Muhammadan Period, vol. 2, Various (Ibn al-Athir, Hasan Nizami, Awfi, Juzjani and others), edited by H. M. Elliot and John Dowson (the sources date from the 1190s to the 14th century; the collection was published in 1869). A one-volume anthology of the Arabic and Persian accounts of the Ghurid conquest. Read online

1 more in the sources library for Northern India.