Khichipur

Khichipur (खिचीपुर) is a village in tahsil Jalandhar - I of district Jalandhar in Indian Punjab.

Jat gotras

Deol

Chauhan history

James Tod writes that according to the Book of Kings of Govind Ram (the Hara bard), the Haras were descended from Anuraj, son of Bisaldeo ; but Mog-ji, the Khichi bard, makes Anuraj progenitor of the Khichis, and son of Manika Rae. We follow the Hara bard.

Anuraj had assigned to him in appanage the important frontier fortress of Asi (vulg, Hansi). His son Ishtpal, together with Aganraj, son of Ajairao, the founder of Khichpur Patan in Sind-Sagur, was preparing to seek his fortunes with Randhir Chohan prince of Gowalcoond : but both Asi and Golconda were almost simultaneously assailed by an army "from the wilds of Gujlibund."

Randhir performed the sakha ; and only a single female, his daughter, named Surabhi, survived, and she fled for protection towards Asi, then attacked by the same furious invader. Anuraj prepared to fly ; but his son, Ishtpal, determined not to wait the attack, but seek the foe. A battle ensued, when the invader was slain, and Ishtpal, grievously wounded, pursued him till he fell, near the spot where Surabhi was awaiting death under the shade of a pipal : for " hopes of life were extinct, and fear and hunger had reduced her to a skeleton." In the moment of despair, however, the ashtwa (peepul) tree under which she took shelter was severed, and

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[p.420]: Asapurna, the guardian goddess of her race, appeared before her. To her, Soorahbae related how her father and twelve brothers had fallen in defending Golconda against ' the demon of Gujlibund'. The goddess told her to be of good cheer, for that a Chohan of her own race had slain him, and was then at hand ; and led her to where Ishtpal lay senseless from his wounds. By her aid he recovered, and possessed himself of that ancient heir-loom of the Chohans, the famed fortress of Asir. The story goes, his limbs, which lay dissevered, were collected by Surabhi, and the goddess sprinkling them with " the water of life" he arose. Hence the name Hara, which his descendants bore, from har or ' Bones,' she collected : but more likely from having lost (Hara) Asi.

Ishtpal, the founder of the Haras, obtained Asir in S. 1081 (or A.D. 1025) ; and as Mahmud of Ghazni's last destructive visit to India, by Multan through the desert to Ajmer, was in A.H. 417, or A.D. 1022, we have every right to conclude that his father Anuraj lost his life and Asi to the king of Ghazni. The Hara chronicle says S. 981, but by some strange, yet uniform errors all the tribes of the Chohans antedate their chronicles by a hundred years. Thus Bisaldeo's taking possession of Anhalpur Patun is "nine hundred, fifty " thirty and six" (S. 986), instead of S. 1086. But it even pervades Chund, the poet of Pirthvi Raj, whose birth is made 1115, instead of S. 1215 : and here in all probability, the error commenced, by the ignorance (willful we cannot imagine) of some rhymer.

At the same time that Ajmer was sacked, and the country laid waste by this conqueror, whom the Hindu bard might well style " the demon from Gujlibund or 'The elephant wilds.' They assert that Ghazni is properly Gujni, founded by the Yadus : and in a curious specimen of Hindu geography (presented by me to the Royal Asiatic Society), all the tract about the glaciers of the Ganges is termed Gujlibun, or Gujlibu, the 'Elephant Forest' There is a " Gujingurh mentioned by Abulfazil in the region of Bijore, inhabited by the Sooltans, Jadoon, and Eusofzye tribes.

The Mahomedan historians give us no hint even of any portion of Mahmood's army penetrating into the peninsula, though that grasping ambition, which considered the shores of Saurashtra but an intermediate step from Ghazni to the conquest of Ceylon and Pegu, may have pushed an army during his long halt at Anhalwarra, and have driven Randhir from Golconda. But it is idle to speculate upon such slender materials ; let them suffice to illustrate one new fact,namely, that these kingdoms of the south as well as the north were held by Rajput sovereigns, whose offspring, blending with the original population, produced that mixed race of Mahrattas, inheriting with the names, the warlike propensities of their ancestors, but who assume the name of their abodes as titles, as the Nimalkars, the Phalkias, the Patankars, instead of their tribes of Jadon, Tuar, Puar, &c., &c.

Ishtpal had a son called Chand-karan ; his son, Lok Pal, had Hamir and Gambhir, names well known in the wars of Pirthi Raj. The brothers were enrolled amongst his one hundred and eight great vassals, from

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[p.421]: which we may infer that, though Asir was not considered absolutely as a fief, its fief paid homage to Ajmer, as the principal seat of the Chohans.

References

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