What remains of the Gahadavalas

Who rules

Name

Harishchandra

Title

Maharajaputra, then Maharajadhiraja (he assumes sovereign titles in 1197)

Since

about 1194, on his father's death at Chandawar

Born

not known

Family

Gahadavala; son of Jayachandra (r. about 1170 to 1194). Jayachandra's nephew Ajayasimha is said to have usurped the Etawah country. A Gahadavala called Adakkamalla is attested at Nagod (Satna) in 1237; his link to Harishchandra is unconfirmed.

Confidence

low

Harishchandra: the Kotwa inscription of 1197 gives him sovereign titles. Nothing dated after it. Whether he is a Ghurid vassal or a sovereign is disputed (Niyogi; Wikipedia).

Overlord

Possibly the Ghurids, through Aibak (disputed)

What the realm holds

• Claims only: the Kashi country (Varanasi, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Bhadohi) and the Mirzapur and Kaimur hills; the Doab round Kannauj is lost

How it was acquired

Inherited 1194. Lost Kannauj and Varanasi to the Ghurids 1194 to 1199.

Allies and rivals

Enemy: the Ghurids (Aibak, Aghul-bak at Benares and Awadh, and the Khalji officers beyond). Old friendship with the Chandelas. The Senas of Bengal pressed from the east (Lakshmanasena may have taken Magadha from the Gahadavalas). Local chiefs, Bhars and Kayastha landholders, went to the Turks.

The realm that morning

A broken house with a title. The land route the Gahadavalas lived on, the Ganges road from Kannauj to Varanasi, is a chain of Ghurid garrisons. Nothing in our sources shows Harishchandra alive and in power on 1 January 1200: treat him as a claimant in the east with a few forts and tributaries.

Wealth

Once the richest revenue in the north (the Turushkadanda levy and the pilgrim tax of Kashi, Ayodhya and Prayag). What is left is the pilgrim trade of Kashi, which now pays the Turks.

Military

Defeated in the field at Chandawar in 1194; the treasure at Asni lost. No numbers survive.

Threats

• Ghurid commanders at Benares and Awadh
• Bakhtiyar Khalji's raiding east of Mirzapur
• Sena pressure on Magadha

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. 1200 to 1203Ghurid commanders (Aghul-bak, Bakhtiyar) take the last Gahadavala chiefs of the Mirzapur and Gaya edge; Bakhtiyar is said to have displaced minor Gahadavala chiefs.Depends on: Ghurid command at Benares and Awadh acting freely. Stopped by: A Ghurid rising or the sultan's call to Khurasan.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1237A Gahadavala, Adakkamalla, is named on a stone at Nagod, far to the south, the only later trace of the house.Depends on: Survival of a branch in the Vindhya hills.

Places of note

• Varanasi: former chief seat

Where the sources disagree

• Board: Varanasi "Harishchandra still ruling as a sovereign in 1197 to 1198; Aibak retook it about 1198". Agreed as to the 1197 stone; the "retaking" is from the Aibak chronology (1197 to 1198) and is not otherwise dated.
• Brief names "Rajyapala" and a Machhlishahr plate of VS 1253 for Harishchandra; the Wikipedia pages do not mention them and we could not check them.

Evidence: One dated stone (1197) after the fall; everything else is Ghurid-side chronicle or inference.

On the map: A claim, not a possession. On the real ground the Ghurid commanders held the towns and the Gahadavala chiefs, Bhars and Kayasthas the villages, and nobody can say which held the road.

Primary sources for this realm

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 Tree of Genealogies, and the Manners of War and Bravery, Fakhr-i Mudabbir (Fakhr al-Din Muhammad ibn Mansur Mubarakshah) (the Shajara about 1206, dedicated to Qutb al-Din Aibak; the Adab al-harb in the 1220s for Iltutmish). The prose introduction to the Shajara, written within six years of 1200, praises Aibak and tells of his rise under Mu'izz al-Din of Ghur, his consecration at Lahore in 1206 and the Ghurid campaigns in Hindustan, with some notice of the Turkish peoples.
• 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
• 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