Mythologies of the Rathore Tribe

 


The Rathore or Rathor is an Indian Rajput dynasty belonging to the clan that has historically ruled over parts of RajasthanGujarat and Madhya PradeshThe first Rathore chieftain was Siho Setramot, grandson of the last Gahadavala king Jayachandra. Setramot abdicated the throne of Kanauj to become an ascetic but got embroiled in a royal rivalry and eventually married the daughter of a Gujarati ruler, who birthed him three sons. Asthan, the eldest, was raised at Paltan after Siho's death (at Kanauj) and he went on to establish the first Rathore polity in Pali (and few adjoining villages), after winning over the local Brahmins by defeating an oppressive king named Kanha Mer. Other contemporary sources claim the same descent and construct slightly variable narratives about migration from Kanauj: Setramot fled the Ghurid Sultanate to Marwar and established the first Rathore polity. The Bithoor inscription provides the date of Siho's death in 1273 CE and calls him the son of Set Kunwar; however, it does not claim any Gaharwal origin.


The Rathores claim they are descended from the legendary Suryavanshi and Chandravanshi lineages of ancient India. According to this tradition, the Rathores are descended from the Solar Dynasty (Suryavanshi) and can trace their ancestry back to Lord Rama and the Ikshvaku Dynasty one of the most ancient and legendary dynasties of India according to Hindu mythology. According to some modern historians, Rathores originated from the Rashtrakuta's ancestors. Some Branches of Rashtrakutas had migrated to Western Rajasthan as early as the late tenth century; some inscriptions of "Rathauras" have been founded in and around Marwar region of Rajasthan dating from the tenth to early thirteenth century; it's believed the Rathores might have emerged from one of the Rashtrakuta divisions.


Rathores are a Suryavanshi Rajput clan. The clan traces its lineage back to Rama, the mythical hero of the Hindu epic Ramayana and through him back to the sun god Surya himself. Which is why the Rathores also call themselves Suryavanshi or family of the sun. The Rathores hail from the Marwar region of western Rajasthan and inhabit in the Idar state of Gujarat and also in Chhapra & Muzaffarpur district of Bihar in a very small number. From the story of the martial clan, the Rathores who ruled Marwar from Jodhpur till the merger of the Princely States with the Dominion of India in 1949, one must travel further back in time to the year 1194. It was in that year, thousands of miles away in eastern India that the Muslim invader, Shahabuddin Mohammed Ghori, defeated the mighty Jaichand of Kanauj. It was Jaichand's great-grandson, Sheoji, who rode out to Marwar in 1226, eager for fresh battlefields and glory all his own. And it is Sheoji's descendants who proudly bear the name, Rathore.


Marwar was ruled by the Rathore dynasty. Historians have different views regarding the origin of Rathores. According to the books of Bhato, Rathore is the child of Hiranyakashyap. In the fame of Jodhpur state, he is written to be born from King Vrihadbal, the son of King Vishutman. Dayaldas has considered him Suryavanshi and told him to be the child of Brahmin Bhallrao. The Rathores of Nainsi Marwar have been described as a branch coming from Kannauj. Colonel Tod has called them Suryavanshi on the basis of the genealogies of Rathores. Although there is a difference of opinion among historians regarding the origin of the Rathores, but all the scholars have related them to the Rashtrakutas of Southern India.



























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