The Guhilas of Mewar

Who rules

Name

not pinned: Kumarasimha (in power by about 1182) or his successors Mathanasimha or Padmasimha

Title

Rawal (king) of Medapata (Mewar)

Since

Kumarasimha by about 1182 (Wikipedia, Guhila dynasty)

Born

not pinned

Family

Guhila house, descended by their own genealogy from Bappa; Ranasimha's son Kshemasimha was father of Samantasimha and of Kumarasimha. The kings between Kumarasimha and Jaitrasimha (r. about 1213 to 1252) are Mathanasimha (called Mahanasimha in the Kumbhalgarh inscription) and Padmasimha; the sources we reached give no reign dates for either.

Confidence

low

The Wikipedia page itself says the text does not name the ruler of 1200 and that the likeliest are Kumarasimha, Mathanasimha or Padmasimha; this is an inference, not a documented fact. The earliest Guhila inscription on the Chittor rock belongs to the mid thirteenth century.

What the realm holds

• Nagda (Nagahrada) with the Eklingji shrine and the tank
• Ahar (Aghatapura), the market town on the eastern rim of the Girwa
• The hill country of the Girwa and the Godwar passes (Gogunda, Kherwara, Deogarh)
• The Banas plain (Bhilwara country), the kingdom's granary
• The silver, lead and zinc of Zawar and Dariba, and the iron of Iswal (archaeological, not dated by charters)
• Chittor (Chitrakuta): possible, not shown

How it was acquired

Kumarasimha regained Mewar about 1182 (Wikipedia, Guhila dynasty). Before that the Guhilas had held Chittor and Nagda; Kumarapala of the Chaulukyas controlled Chittor by 1151.

Allies and rivals

Feudatory of Bhima II of Gujarat since about 1182. Enemies and rivals: the Chahamana houses of Nadol and Jalor (who drove Samantasimha out), the Ghurid garrison at Ajmer (north), and the Paramaras of Malwa (east). Kin: the cadet line in Vagad (Samantasimha's) displaced about 1185 by Bhima II.

The realm that morning

The Guhila king is a Chaulukya feudatory with a rebuilt kingdom and a disputed capital rock. The kingdom's holding of the Banas plain and Chittor is not documented; the heart (Nagda and Ahar) is. No source for 1200 records a Ghurid attack on Mewar; Iltutmish's attack comes in the 1220s.

Wealth

Grain and cotton of the Banas plain; Zawar and Dariba (lead, silver); marble from the Morwad hills; the toll posts on the Chittor to Gujarat road. No revenue figure.

Military

Hill forts and horse; no counts. The kingdom's fortresses are mostly later than 1200: Kumbhalgarh does not exist (Rana Kumbha, 1448).

Threats

• A Chaulukya recall of the vassal
• Chahamana or Ghurid raids from the north
• Malwa from the east
• The Bhils, who are the kingdom's refuge and its weak point

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.

1. between 1207 and 1227The Guhilas of Medapata declare themselves independent of Gujarat (Wikipedia as quoted in Chaulukya Gujarat)Depends on: Gujarat's weakness after Jayantasimha Stopped by: A strong Chaulukya army in Marwar
2. about 1213Jaitrasimha succeeds (reign about 1213 to 1252, the first Guhila king with a clear date range; his inscriptions are dated 1270, 1279 and 1284 VS)Depends on: Nothing changes the line before then Stopped by: A change of ruler or dynasty
3. 1220sIltutmish invades Mewar and destroys Nagda (Wikipedia, Guhila dynasty)Depends on: A Delhi ruler strong enough to march south Stopped by: A coalition of Guhilas, Chahamanas and Chaulukyas

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry nagda says the ruler on 1 January is not fixed and names Kumarasimha, Mathanasimha, Padmasimha before Jaitrasimha 'about 1213'; Wikipedia agrees. We give the three as candidates and no more.
• The campaign board entry chittaurgarh says Gujarat and the Chahamanas of Nadol drove the Guhilas out in the 1170s; Wikipedia says Kirtipala of Naddula did it with Chaulukya approval, between 1171 and 1179. The campaign board's 'Gujarat and the Chahamanas of Nadol' is a compression.
• The campaign board entry sisoda treats the Rawal and Rana branches as a claim not an established fact. We agree: the split is known from the fifteenth-century Eklinga-Mahatmya and not from an inscription of this date. No later house-name for the Rana branch is used here: the king of 1200 is a Guhila of Medapata.
• The Wikipedia page lists inscriptions of Kshemasimha dated 1228, 1236, 1256 and 1258 'VS'. If those are Vikrama years (1171 to 1201 CE) they cannot all be his, since his son was driven out in the 1170s. The era or the attribution is wrong in what we reached; we use none of them.

Evidence: Wikipedia's Guhila page (after Vyas, Ganguly, Somani, Hooja and Sharma) is cautious and says plainly that no dated document falls in 1182 to 1213; the rest is board colour and the archaeology.

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

On the map: The Guhilas' real hold is a hill kingdom of villages and tanks; the plain towards Chittor is a probability, not a fact.

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.

• 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
• The Wishing-Stone of Narratives, Merutunga (a Jain monk of the Nagendra gaccha) (1305 (Vikrama 1361) at Vadhvan in Gujarat). A Jain collection of historical anecdotes about the kings of Gujarat and Malwa, a century after 1200. Read online