Prithviraj III, popularly known as Prithviraj Chauhan, was one of the greatest Rajput rulers of Rajasthan. He belonged to the Shakambhari branch of the Chauhan dynasty. He controlled various parts of northern and north-western India. The last Hindu emperor, as stated by James Tod and considered in the modern context, was a highly courageous warrior and an able archer who carried the strength to defend the motherland from invasions. It is said that he ascended the throne of Ajmer when he was still a minor but had become king by 1178 CE. Reconstructing the image of Prithviraj Chauhan through various sources is highly interesting, but it is important to note the reliability of those sources, since it is not a simple task. Here I begin tracing the similarities and differences in the portrayal of Prithviraj Chauhan through various primary sources.

The Primary Sources

Jayanaka, a poet from Kashmir who came to the court of Prithviraj, wrote Prithviraj Vijaya, a Sanskrit poem. Narrow in its focus and valued mainly for its factual detail, it often identifies Prithviraj Chauhan as a form of Vishnu and at times as Ram as well. It recounts the triumph in the First Battle of Tarain while setting aside the defeat in the second, since the very name of the text conveys the intention of speaking only of victory. It is considered the only surviving text written during the ruler’s reign, and it highlights how the king stood firm to rid the land of the devils in human form, such as Shihab al-Din.

By contrast, Hasan Nizami’s Taj-al-Ma’asir is one of the earliest Persian texts composed at Delhi, written around 1205 or 1206, less than two decades after Prithviraj’s defeat. Classified as manaqib by Sunil Kumar, it begins with the account of the triumph against Prithviraj and presents him as an arrogant, egoistic figure who refuses to convert to Islam or bow before the Ghurids. Historians rely on this text to reconstruct the history of Prithviraj Chauhan and Ajmer, and to understand what happened in the years following the Second Battle of Tarain.

In addition to this comparison, both texts state alike that an ambassador was sent to the court of Prithviraj for political negotiations. It is also engrossing to note how each text focuses on the victory of its respective hero while omitting his failures. In this way each author, writing under royal patronage, preserved the aura of eminence around his hero.

The episode of Prithviraj Chauhan’s marriage is especially fascinating. The eleventh chapter of Prithviraj Vijaya presents an incomplete picture of his love: a nameless woman living on the banks of the Ganges, personified as an apsara, as described in Hindu mythology. The Prithviraj Raso describes it in a wholly different manner. A blend of Brajbhasha with local Rajasthani elements, antique in its vocabulary and composed by the court poet Chand Bardai, the Raso is regarded as one of the most trusted accounts because it professes to be an eyewitness narrative of Prithviraj Chauhan’s lifetime. It portrays how the king, along with his armed forces, carries off the princess of Kannauj, Samyogita, the daughter of Jayachand. Yet the geographical location mentioned in both texts is alike, and so Dasharatha Sharma seeks to identify the personified apsara as Samyogita, drawing on the reference in the Prithviraj Raso.

On the one hand, the Prithviraj Raso represents the ruler as an eminent and successful figure who regained his honour by shooting his arrows at Shihab al-Din, though Prithviraj and Chand died soon after. On the other, the Sanskrit prabandhas of the medieval period (Prabandha Cintamani, Hamira Mahakavya and Prithviraj Prabandha) depict him as an ineffectual and lethargic king who is responsible for his own misfortune. Even so, certain basic characters, such as Prithviraj’s bard Chand and his adversary Jayachand, and the two episodes of the killing of the minister Kaymas and of Sultan Shihab al-Din cited in the Raso, are echoed in the Prithviraj Prabandha.

In the same vein as the Sanskrit stories, the A’in-i-Akbari asserts that it was Prithviraj’s own fault that he lost the battle of 1192, the reason being his carefree and indulgent way of living, such that he paid no attention to the administration or to the welfare of his army.

Another source through which the image of Prithviraj Chauhan can be traced is the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri, a Persian text composed by Minhaj Siraj Juzjani. It is considered the most well-grounded source for understanding the Ghurian conquest of North India and the foundation of the Delhi Sultanate. On the two battles, the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri distinctly mentions the conflict between Shihab al-Din and Prithviraj over the fort of Tabarhindah (present-day Bathinda, Punjab) and records the immediate killing of Prithviraj at the hands of the Ghurid army. In opposition to this, the Taj-al-Ma’asirremarks that, before being executed, the ruler of Ajmer served for a short span as a subordinate under the Ghurids. Although various other sources also mention the conflict, this remains one of the most prestigious among them.

Unlike Hasan Nizami’s Taj-al-Ma’asir, Juzjani throws light on the episodes that cast a shadow over Mu’izz al-Din Muhammad of Ghur, such as his failed attempt at the First Battle of Tarain in 1191 against Prithviraj Chauhan. At the same time, both texts mention the two battles as turning points in the course of history.

The Tarikh-i Mubarakshahi, an Indo-Persian text written by Yahya ibn Ahmad Sirhindi around 1434, presents much the same material as the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri, with slight changes. Abu al-Fazl’s A’in-i-Akbari, completed around 1597 by the great historian of the Mughal Empire, offers a description drawing on the Hindu chronicles of the Rajput ruler. Much of what it relates follows the lines of the Prithviraj Raso, on account of the Raso‘s eyewitness character, despite the availability of the Persian chronicles.

The divergent view that the A’in-i-Akbari brings to its retelling of the story of Prithviraj is its identification of him as the ruler of Delhi, rather than as the ruler of Ajmer, as he is described in the twelfth-century Sanskrit poem (Prithviraj Vijaya) and the thirteenth-century Persian histories (Taj-al-Ma’asir and Tabaqat-i-Nasiri). Although it follows the lines of the Raso, it pays no heed to the Raso‘s story of Anangpal Tomar’s gift of Delhi to Prithviraj Chauhan. Instead, the A’in-i-Akbari affirms that the Chauhan dynasty acquired Delhi by defeating the Tomars, and that Shihab al-Din subsequently took over the throne of Delhi in the same manner.

Above all, the Prithviraj Raso, taking the contrary position, presents Raja Pithaura as the ruler of both. With regard to Ajmer, he inherited the throne from his father Someshvar; with regard to Delhi, sovereignty passed down to him through Anangpal of the Tomar dynasty, his maternal grandfather, an account the Raso has incorporated from the Anangpal Pillar tale, an old folktale. Abu al-Fazl, however, reveals that the first two Delhi sultans resided in the fort of the Rajput ruler, identifying the old Delhi fort as the residence of the Chauhans. The text thus entirely effaces the identity of the Rajput ruler of Ajmer, placing him instead as the exclusive ruler of Delhi.

Conclusion

It has been instructive to draw out the similarities and differences in our understanding of the image of Prithviraj Chauhan, and to see how narratives handed down across the generations come to define him in the modern context. Ultimately it is a matter of representation: the way different historians portray a figure, one casting him in a positive light and another in a negative one. Another thing that is clear from these texts is that every region tries to highlight the stronger side, or the heroic aspects, of its hero. The identity of this remarkable figure, Prithviraj Chauhan, will therefore always remain irreplaceable. To sum up, in the words of Julius Caesar: “No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.”

Bibliography

1. Abu’l Fazl. Ain-i-Akbari. Translated by H. Blochmann and H.S. Jarrett. Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1927.
2. Chand Bardai. Prithviraj Raso. Various editions.
3. Jayanaka. Prithviraja Vijaya. Edited by G.H. Ojha and Chandra Dhar Sharma Guleri. Ajmer: Rajputana Museum, 1941.
4. Juzjani, Minhaj-us-Siraj. Tabaqat-i-Nasiri. Translated by H.G. Raverty. New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 1970.
5. Kumar, Sunil. The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 1192–1286. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007.
6. Nizami, Hasan. Taj-ul-Maasir. Translated by Mohammad Habib. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House.
7. Sharma, Dasharatha. Early Chauhan Dynasties. New Delhi: S. Chand & Company, 1959.
8. Talbot, Cynthia. The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan and the Indian Past, 1200–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.