Maharana Pratap of Mewar

[Virendra]

@Virendra
That is what I have been saying and it is a problem of ideology not of shortsightedness on part of individual rulers. Entire society is to be blamed( perhaps not as pagan society can not comprehend Abrahmic threat in pre modern age) for this.

Ideologies and foresight are not decoupled concepts, rather are deeply entwined.

But political fragmentation nullified vastness of this civilization. Women of Peshawar were as ready to burn than lose honour as Rajasthan but because these two areas were not united, individual resistance was overcome easily by bearded ghazis.

Yes and when you face a danger like never before, it is time to shed the disputes. India was still one as a socio-cultural entity. I do not believe that putting a united politico-limitary front was so impossible.

Correct. As I said, Europe had same disease but had a centre in form of papacy, we did not have. Even Europe did not act as one in face of Mongol invasions.

I'd say they were a bit luckier than us that Chengiz died early. Mongol campaigns lost momentum after that.

In medieval age, people were not aware of areas outside their own civilization. The neighbours of recurring hordes treated them as hordes not as an enemy inspired by similar ideology and with objective of destruction of all of them just because they were Hindus.

That wouldn't be the case if the State(s) were studying their environment properly, if merchants and travellers were heading west regularly.

Jayachandra never thought that Ghuri would attack him as soon as he vanquished Chauhans for he thought in terms of normal diplomacy and was not aware of jehad concept.

To his own peril. I thought he was a cunning ruler. A ruler's political cunningness for his rule is one thing and intellectual foresight of a people is another.

What is distance between Peshawar and Kabul? I suppose 200 miles some 5-6 times less than Ghazanavid march from Ghazni to Somnath. Please note that Ghazanavi did this when he had looted entire Pakistan and UP so it is reasonable to argue that he could finance such a long march easily.
Llalitaditya had immense resources by looting North India and could afford to lose his mercenaries. Calculate cost of feeding 50,000 people for months and then you would get what I am saying. Our rulers did not have superb logistics for want of resources . Why you do not see Senas launching raid into South East Asia like Cholas? Senas were smaller is the answer not that he missed chances for want of aggressiveness.

Invaders never departed with tonnes of supplies. They were invaders remember? They would loot and plunder all the way. Feeding was not an issue for them.
Our rulers on the other hand would start worrying about meticulous preparations of supply chain
But I can agree with you partially, because of a problem when you move from settled agrarian lands to war driven nomadics/pastoralist countries.
There isn't a nucleus to destroy forever and there isn't the wealth in fields and villages to plunder along the way.
As for being small and all, nobody is big from day one. Sanga had the gall to shove into Lodi's lands pushing his borders till Peelakhal near Agra. All this after neutralizing the fangs of Gujarat, Malwa Sultanates. I don't think our Kingdoms we so small and weak that with decent alliances they couldn't have held off invasions. Yeah, technology might or might still not have beaten them; but these are just hypothesis.

Not with great resources. Feudal and clannish based kingdoms suffer from paucity of central revenue so they can not undertake long and aggressive compaigns unless united by alliances.

Yes not a single Kingdom for a long campaign at the enemy's lebensraum as after Harshavardhan there was increasing fragmentation. I'm saying make an alliance and do that campaign. They were not so weak after all.
Though you know the strength Vidyadhara Chandel alone displayed in front of Mahmud. Armies and administration got fragmented may be, not decimated.

I am myself moralistic and I hate them but I meant that materially they were quite sophisticated.

Does it take any material to be intellectually forward and sense the strategic dangers facing one's society?
We're on different pages here.

Because you can overcome horse archers only by outnumbering them and you can not do it if you have loose feudal structure.

You can do it by making alliances. Yes, they may be be reactive alliances sans of natural cohesion but still.
Need was to wake up to the danger. Once that is done, there is always a way to take the challenge. We didn't wake up properly.

Are you serious here? So just because Kushanas entered India and not Xiongnu ( who crushed kushans in their own homeland), Xiongnu becomes weak? Babur could not hold his own against his rivals so he sought fortune here. Simple as that.

Wrong corollary. I'm not saying Babur was stronger than his peers in C Asia. He was probably weaker. But still he came to India and struck gold, not his cousins.
Also, invading India was still not a piece of cake that any rag tag war lord could do it. If it were so, we would have seen many Baburs come here from C Asia long before 1520s.

I agree about numeric advantage part but I would appreciate if you can throw some light on alliances.

Check the alliances against Arabs. Chalukyas, Mewar, Pratiharas all fought together in west India against the first set of Arab waves.
Next they tried their luck up north where Muktapida and Yashovarman allied to thwart them. It is another matter that after this episode there was bad blood between the two.

Rajputs must have been around 5 percent on average( certainly 3 percent ). Other castes did not train as good as Rajputs but my point was that they were as much martial as other communities( non soldier) of sedentary world.
Brother, please read my line . I said that these communities were as militarized as any other community in world. Now, we can exclude nomadic societies so what I meant was that a Rajput was as martial as a Chinese soldier, a Brahmin as martial as chinese intellectual and so on. I did not mean that they all were equal among themselves. I challenged notion of hindu cowardice or hindus lacking manhood by this example.

And I'm saying that militarized peasants do not stand a chance against Islamic cavalries in regular warfare. They are stealth soldiers to use as last line of defense in guerilla warfare. But that comes when enemy has already penetrated; when the war on border is lost.
My point was, if more than 3-5 % of populace would be battle worthy at border, wouldn't the outcome be different ??

Not at all. Gujarati forces intercepted a small contingent of Ghazanavi army and captured some women of Turks. The solankis took them all as wives with women of low rank being married to common soldiers and some noble women( in case they were "kumaris") were married by nobles . So a people marrying beef eating musalmanins can not be called as rigid at any cost.

Do let us know of your source. Besides, I would call this an isolated incident. Let me know if this was accepted as a practice.

The point I made was that caste free pagan societies have also fallen to Abrahmic ones so I do not hold caste responsible for our defeats.

Since the healthy man also got killed, I don't think the sick man's disease was in any way contributing to his death.
That is no way of freeing the igid caste system from all charges against it.
Like I said before, do not look at things the 'one angle at a time' way. The large picture gets blurred. There are factors, many of them; and they all contribute.

But if you are centralized, you will always have option to spread yourself. I repeat that centralization does not mean no resistance at local levels, only that it has huge potential to mobilize army at one place.

World is not Aryavarta my brother. You can not keep out losses of entire world from Xinjiang to Spain and at the same time holding caste responsible for no resistance. If caste was responsible, what about Iraq, Syria and Spain? Why they did not throw invaders out? You will have to address this point.

Are you saying that all the world's military defeats are supposed to be out of the same set of reasons?

Hindus could not travel westwards because of Islam. Nikitin had to covert to come to India, do you think that Hindus would have eaten beef to travel these lands. My point is that Muslims did not allow hindus to travel to lands beyond Hindukush and not that insularity reflected in brahmanic texts stopped people.
SE Asia and Tibet were not dominated by Muslims so we travelled in these areas.

If we were that innocent to nod our heads when someone said "Don't come here", then we deserved what happened to us.
That doesn't excuse us from what needed to be done, it still faced us like a huge gap.
If travel is not allowed, use trade. If trade is not allowed use spying. It is upto us to devise a way for exploring un known lands.
How can we justify and come to peace with unknown lands right in the neighbourhood?

We did not have insularity, it was forced on us by Muslims.

I disagree and have said why.

@Virendra
I do not think that I am wrong. Chachnama is available online and nowhere it mentions about 25,000 soldiers from Khalifa's core. It mentions 6,000 cavalry from Syria and Iraq and other 6000 camel riders . Professor KS Lal believes figure is somewhere around 20,000 and irregulars were recruited from Makran not from Arabia.
Also, how come catapult was used by Prophet? I have read every battle in which he participated, most were fought on open battlefields and at one place you would be surprised to know that ordinary boundary walls some 9 feet high protected Arab polytheists from Muslims until a Muslim jumped and opened the door of wall for protecting datepalms. The first use of catapults by Muslims was after 634 and Prophet died by 632.
The author of Chachnama is bluffing if he says that catapult was used by prophet.

Where did I say the core itself was 25,000? Please read again. I said total was around 25,000 before he fought Dahir.
By the time he left Multan, for Dipalpur and north, total was 50,000.

At Shiraz (border of Sind) he received :
6,000 cavalry
6,000 camel men
3,000 loading camels who were battle trained,
An advanced guard under Abul Aswad Jaham

He was joined near Makran by reinforcements from Governor Muhammad Harun.

His artillery, which consisted of five catapults, was sent by sea to join him at Debal.
Each of these five catapults or balistas was worked by 500 trained men, making the total of his artillery men 2,500.
These figures did not include this troops who fell in various battles during the campaign and those that were left in garrisons in the towns/forts of Sindh.
All this is corroborated from primary sources like Al-Biladuri and Chachnama.

Biladuri mentioning the advanced guard and Catapults etc that came via Ships.

..
..
..
Biladuri mentions Jats joining in.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-...UliBFHIvd-A/s581/Al_Biladuri_Jats_joining.jpg
..
..
..
Chachnama mentions reinforcements at Shiraz,before Debal.

..
..
..
Chachnama mentions Catapults, Ships etc.

..
..
..
Elliott compiling from Arab sources including the ones above, covers the figure of 50,000 :

..

..

I think we have said what we had to and now there's going to be looping of arguments, going round in circles.
My last post on this debate. Thank you.

 

[Pratap]

Ideologies and foresight are not decoupled concepts, rather are deeply entwined.

Yes and when you face a danger like never before, it is time to shed the disputes. India was still one as a socio-cultural entity. I do not believe that putting a united politico-limitary front was so impossible.

I'd say they were a bit luckier than us that Chengiz died early. Mongol campaigns lost momentum after that.


That wouldn't be the case if the State(s) were studying their environment properly, if merchants and travellers were heading west regularly.

To his own peril. I thought he was a cunning ruler. A ruler's political cunningness for his rule is one thing and intellectual foresight of a people is another.

Invaders never departed with tonnes of supplies. They were invaders remember? They would loot and plunder all the way. Feeding was not an issue for them.
Our rulers on the other hand would start worrying about meticulous preparations of supply chain
But I can agree with you partially, because of a problem when you move from settled agrarian lands to war driven nomadics/pastoralist countries.
There isn't a nucleus to destroy forever and there isn't the wealth in fields and villages to plunder along the way.
As for being small and all, nobody is big from day one. Sanga had the gall to shove into Lodi's lands pushing his borders till Peelakhal near Agra. All this after neutralizing the fangs of Gujarat, Malwa Sultanates. I don't think our Kingdoms we so small and weak that with decent alliances they couldn't have held off invasions. Yeah, technology might or might still not have beaten them; but these are just hypothesis.

Yes not a single Kingdom for a long campaign at the enemy's lebensraum as after Harshavardhan there was increasing fragmentation. I'm saying make an alliance and do that campaign. They were not so weak after all.
Though you know the strength Vidyadhara Chandel alone displayed in front of Mahmud. Armies and administration got fragmented may be, not decimated.

Does it take any material to be intellectually forward and sense the strategic dangers facing one's society?
We're on different pages here.

You can do it by making alliances. Yes, they may be be reactive alliances sans of natural cohesion but still.
Need was to wake up to the danger. Once that is done, there is always a way to take the challenge. We didn't wake up properly.

Wrong corollary. I'm not saying Babur was stronger than his peers in C Asia. He was probably weaker. But still he came to India and struck gold, not his cousins.
Also, invading India was still not a piece of cake that any rag tag war lord could do it. If it were so, we would have seen many Baburs come here from C Asia long before 1520s.

Check the alliances against Arabs. Chalukyas, Mewar, Pratiharas all fought together in west India against the first set of Arab waves.
Next they tried their luck up north where Muktapida and Yashovarman allied to thwart them. It is another matter that after this episode there was bad blood between the two.


And I'm saying that militarized peasants do not stand a chance against Islamic cavalries in regular warfare. They are stealth soldiers to use as last line of defense in guerilla warfare. But that comes when enemy has already penetrated; when the war on border is lost.
My point was, if more than 3-5 % of populace would be battle worthy at border, wouldn't the outcome be different ??

Do let us know of your source. Besides, I would call this an isolated incident. Let me know if this was accepted as a practice.

Since the healthy man also got killed, I don't think the sick man's disease was in any way contributing to his death.
That is no way of freeing the igid caste system from all charges against it.
Like I said before, do not look at things the 'one angle at a time' way. The large picture gets blurred. There are factors, many of them; and they all contribute.




Are you saying that all the world's military defeats are supposed to be out of the same set of reasons?

If we were that innocent to nod our heads when someone said "Don't come here", then we deserved what happened to us.
That doesn't excuse us from what needed to be done, it still faced us like a huge gap.
If travel is not allowed, use trade. If trade is not allowed use spying. It is upto us to devise a way for exploring un known lands.
How can we justify and come to peace with unknown lands right in the neighbourhood?

I disagree and have said why.


Where did I say the core itself was 25,000? Please read again. I said total was around 25,000 before he fought Dahir.
By the time he left Multan, for Dipalpur and north, total was 50,000.

At Shiraz (border of Sind) he received :
6,000 cavalry
6,000 camel men
3,000 loading camels who were battle trained,
An advanced guard under Abul Aswad Jaham

He was joined near Makran by reinforcements from Governor Muhammad Harun.

His artillery, which consisted of five catapults, was sent by sea to join him at Debal.
Each of these five catapults or balistas was worked by 500 trained men, making the total of his artillery men 2,500.
These figures did not include this troops who fell in various battles during the campaign and those that were left in garrisons in the towns/forts of Sindh.
All this is corroborated from primary sources like Al-Biladuri and Chachnama.

Biladuri mentioning the advanced guard and Catapults etc that came via Ships.

..
..
..
Biladuri mentions Jats joining in.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-...UliBFHIvd-A/s581/Al_Biladuri_Jats_joining.jpg
..
..
..
Chachnama mentions reinforcements at Shiraz,before Debal.

..
..
..
Chachnama mentions Catapults, Ships etc.

..
..
..
Elliott compiling from Arab sources including the ones above, covers the figure of 50,000 :

..

..

I think we have said what we had to and now there's going to be looping of arguments, going round in circles.
My last post on this debate. Thank you.

To This I agree. I too do not think much remains from my side. Let us end it here but I will open a separate thread on how caste system was not at all responsible for defeats.

My source for that Gujarati incident is this

http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=andre%20wink%20making%20of%20al%20hind&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCcQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%2Fabout%2FAl_Hind_the_Making_of_the_Indo_Islamic_W.html%3Fid%3Dg2m7_R5P2oAC&ei=gi5RU5fqH4SKrgfJ_oHYAw&usg=AFQjCNF2IGuI45uAthRxRDAdi6aVNYN2Lg&bvm=bv.65058239,d.bmk

Only a minor correction. It was death of Changez's son Ogedei which most probably saved Western Europe as Hungary and Poland were devastated 14 years after death of Changez.

History of Mongol Conquests by JJ Saunders is my source on Mongols.

 

[Bhadra]

How have you people gone back 300 years " from Rana Pratap" to Mohmad Bin Qasim ??

 

[Virendra]

How have you people gone back 300 years " from Rana Pratap" to Mohmad Bin Qasim ??

One of the reasons why I stopped. We went OT.
Any way, lets get back with analysis of why Pratap lost at Haldighati :
I propose few reasons :
1. Pratap stationed his army in a narrow valley where his troops couldn't scatter and use the rough terrain, surrounding hills, caves etc.
2. He thrust his entire army into one battle in traditional way. This didn't leave him with leverage for future battles.
3. He moved his troops forward into the plain, once the Mughals retreated from the first charge. This tired his troops and exposed the numeric disadvantage. Eventually they got disorganized.
4. This was his first battle as a King against Mughals. Experience was not on his side.

Regards,
Virendra

 

[Peter]

One of the reasons why I stopped. We went OT.
Any way, lets get back with analysis of why Pratap lost at Haldighati :
I propose few reasons :
1. Pratap stationed his army in a narrow valley where his troops couldn't scatter and use the rough terrain, surrounding hills, caves etc.
2. He thrust his entire army into one battle in traditional way. This didn't leave him with leverage for future battles.
3. He moved his troops forward into the plain, once the Mughals retreated from the first charge. This tired his troops and exposed the numeric disadvantage. Eventually they got disorganized.
4. This was his first battle as a King against Mughals. Experience was not on his side.

Regards,
Virendra

Thanks for this info.Well i am no history expert but I had known that the Mughals had a lot of artillery with them which Maharana did not have.So when Maharana brought his army into the plains his men must have been killed by cannons.

 

[Bhadra]

One of the reasons why I stopped. We went OT.
Any way, lets get back with analysis of why Pratap lost at Haldighati :
I propose few reasons :
1. Pratap stationed his army in a narrow valley where his troops couldn't scatter and use the rough terrain, surrounding hills, caves etc.
2. He thrust his entire army into one battle in traditional way. This didn't leave him with leverage for future battles.
3. He moved his troops forward into the plain, once the Mughals retreated from the first charge. This tired his troops and exposed the numeric disadvantage. Eventually they got disorganized.
4. This was his first battle as a King against Mughals. Experience was not on his side.

Regards,
Virendra

You are right if you have seen Haldi Ghati... and it seems you have - The plain area where an army with superior strength would prevail..

Comparative strength was not and could not have been in favour of Rana....

Subsequently Rana drew the Moguls into difficult terrain where the terrain advantages nullified Mogul superiority in strength...

Rana could only hold against such vast and superior strength by adopting Guerilla warfare at places like Rakta Talia, Chiitor, Kumbalgarh etc... however with great costs and supreme sacrifices...

 

[Virendra]

Thanks for this info.Well i am no history expert but I had known that the Mughals had a lot of artillery with them which Maharana did not have.So when Maharana brought his army into the plains his men must have been killed by cannons.

I don't know of cannons being used in Haldighati.
1. Neither was Mewar army stationed in a fort,
2. Nor were they firing arrows from any hilltop bunkers.
3. Further, the battle began in a cramped up valley.
Where would the Mughals use cannons?
As for when the Rajputs made the mistake of coming into open field, infantry and cavalry of both sides was enmeshed into each other. Artillery would decimate Mughals' own soldiers.
So what did Mughals do? They used cavalry archers on select flanks and also used reserves very well.
Reserves came in at the right time when Mughals were repulsed by the dashing charge of Mewari army.
About the cavalry archers :
When the mass of Rajput soldiers from both sides clashed with each other, the bigoted Al-Badauni, present at the battle, asked Mughal commander Asaf Khan how their archers would distinguish between friendly and enemy Rajputs
His reply was -"whichever side a man falls, is a gain to Islam."
His men surrounded this lot and shot arrows at free will.

As far as artillery inferiority goes, Haldighati is not an apt battle to quote as example.
Khanwa perhaps is. Then the 18th century battles where Marathas used French artillery against native Kingdoms and later British used theirs.

Regards,
Virendra

 

[Virendra]

You are right if you have seen Haldi Ghati... and it seems you have - The plain area where an army with superior strength would prevail..

Comparative strength was not and could not have been in favour of Rana....

Subsequently Rana drew the Moguls into difficult terrain where the terrain advantages nullified Mogul superiority in strength...

Rana could only hold against such vast and superior strength by adopting Guerilla warfare at places like Rakta Talia, Chiitor, Kumbalgarh etc... however with great costs and supreme sacrifices...

I believe geography was a major factor why Mewar and other states of south Rajputana could resist one invasion after the other; unlike Amber.
a) Amber in north east Rajputana was the first place Turks or Mughals sweeping from Delhi-Agra area would encounter.
b) Amber did not have the cover of Aravali hills, the innumerable forts & forests thereof.
c) Amber was left alone to fend for itself (against Sher Shah Suri and Mughals) when Mewar succumbed to disarray of weak and frequently changing rulers after Sanga. This was after Amber's Kachwahas had fought for Sanga in 1527 A.D.

 

[Simple_Guy]

As per an inscription given in Maharana Kumbha: Sovereign, Soldier, Scholar

He killed the enemy and took Mandowar (Mandor). He conquered Amradadri (Amber) and won the battle of Kotra and took Mandalkar (Mandalgarh). He took Giripur. He conquered Sarangpur, taking "numberless Turk women prisoners and humbled the pride of Muhammad, its ruler."

So @Virendra we can say that Amber was part of Mewar since Rana Kumbha times?

 

[Virendra]

As per an inscription given in Maharana Kumbha: Sovereign, Soldier, Scholar
So @Virendra we can say that Amber was part of Mewar since Rana Kumbha times?

Amradadri means Hill of Amber (where Amber fort is situated even today).
The epithet to Kumbha is 'Amrad-Adri-Dalan' precisely, which means the "Trampler of Amber hill". This title is given to Kumbha because he conquered Amber and exacted tribute from it.
But we wouldn't call Amber a part of Mewar really, rather part of a Mewari federation. It is just that Mewar army defeated Amber and hence Amber was subjugated to :
a) Give tribute to Mewar and
b) like other conquered states, contribute troops to federated armies of Mewar.
Better would be to say that Amber was serving Mewar. Rulers of Amber still held local sovereignty and this continued even after Mughals came on the scene.

Regards,
Virendra

 

[Pratap]

Amradadri means Hill of Amber (where Amber fort is situated even today).
The epithet to Kumbha is 'Amrad-Adri-Dalan' precisely, which means the "Trampler of Amber hill". This title is given to Kumbha because he conquered Amber and exacted tribute from it.
But we wouldn't call Amber a part of Mewar really, rather part of a Mewari federation. It is just that Mewar army defeated Amber and hence Amber was subjugated to :
a) Give tribute to Mewar and
b) like other conquered states, contribute troops to federated armies of Mewar.
Better would be to say that Amber was serving Mewar. Rulers of Amber still held local sovereignty and this continued even after Mughals came on the scene.

Regards,
Virendra

I agree on Amber being a tributary rather than part of Mewar technically speaking.

 

[Pratap]

When the mass of Rajput soldiers from both sides clashed with each other, the bigoted Al-Badauni, present at the battle, asked Mughal commander Asaf Khan how their archers would distinguish between friendly and enemy Rajputs
His reply was -"whichever side a man falls, is a gain to Islam."

This should be taught and highlighted to Indians at large.

 

[Pratap]

I don't know of cannons being used in Haldighati.
1. Neither was Mewar army stationed in a fort,
2. Nor were they firing arrows from any hilltop bunkers.
3. Further, the battle began in a cramped up valley.
Where would the Mughals use cannons?
As for when the Rajputs made the mistake of coming into open field, infantry and cavalry of both sides was enmeshed into each other. Artillery would decimate Mughals' own soldiers.
So what did Mughals do? They used cavalry archers on select flanks and also used reserves very well.
Reserves came in at the right time when Mughals were repulsed by the dashing charge of Mewari army.
About the cavalry archers :
When the mass of Rajput soldiers from both sides clashed with each other, the bigoted Al-Badauni, present at the battle, asked Mughal commander Asaf Khan how their archers would distinguish between friendly and enemy Rajputs
His reply was -"whichever side a man falls, is a gain to Islam."
His men surrounded this lot and shot arrows at free will.

As far as artillery inferiority goes, Haldighati is not an apt battle to quote as example.
Khanwa perhaps is. Then the 18th century battles where Marathas used French artillery against native Kingdoms and later British used theirs.

Regards,
Virendra

Is that story about Shakti Singh rescuing Pratap from two Turk horsemen who were chasing him( Kazakhs were there in battle ) true?

 

[Virendra]

Is that story about Shakti Singh rescuing Pratap from two Turk horsemen who were chasing him( Kazakhs were there in battle ) true?

Seems like a story, found no reason to believe it.
Shakti Singh was present in the royal court in 1560s when Akbar once made a remark that "All Kings have sent brides to the Royal court, except Mewar head Udai Singh".
Hearing this, Shakti Singh knew that Akbar would not wait long now in attacking Mewar. It is possible that Shakti may have warned the Mewar Maharana.
In 1567 when Akbar was preparing in Dholpur to attack Chittor, Shakti Singh left his camp and went to Chittor to debrief Udai Singh about the enemy's designs.
Once he had deserted the Mughal side in 1567 itself, there is no way he could have gone back (to be present in Mughal Army years later at Haldighati).
Nor we have any contemporary source mentioning so.

For the given narrative to be true, Pratap needs to escape alone from Haldighati. That again is not possible. He was always accompanied by a band of trusted Samants and soldiers (including BhamaShah), who had carried him away from Haldighati; the same way injured Sanga was forcibly carried away from Khanwa battleground. So there's no question of Shakti Singh and Pratap meeting alone away from the battlefield.
Further, no Islamic sources record Shakti Singh (brother of main enemy) as a part of the Royal Army at that time.
Even Al-Badayuni who was himself present at the battle hasn't mentioned Shakti singh at all.
Even the native sources like 'Rana Raso', 'Raj Ratnakar' and Mewari Khyats do not mention this incident.

Regards,
Virendra

 

[Pratap]

Seems like a story, found no reason to believe it.
Shakti Singh was present in the royal court in 1560s when Akbar once made a remark that "All Kings have sent brides to the Royal court, except Mewar head Udai Singh".
Hearing this, Shakti Singh knew that Akbar would not wait long now in attacking Mewar. It is possible that Shakti may have warned the Mewar Maharana.
In 1567 when Akbar was preparing in Dholpur to attack Chittor, Shakti Singh left his camp and went to Chittor to debrief Udai Singh about the enemy's designs.
Once he had deserted the Mughal side in 1567 itself, there is no way he could have gone back (to be present in Mughal Army).
Nor we have any contemporary source mentioning so.

For the given narrative to be true, Pratap needs to escape alone from Haldighati. That again is not possible. He was always accompanied by a band of trusted Samants and soldiers (including BhamaShah), who had carried him away from Haldighati; the same way injured Sanga was forcibly carried away from Khanwa battleground. So there's no question of Shakti Singh and Pratap meeting alone away from the battlefield.
Further, no Islamic sources record Shakti Singh (brother of main enemy) as a part of the Royal Army at that time.
Even Al-Badayuni who was himself present at the battle hasn't mentioned Shakti singh at all.
Even the native sources like 'Rana Raso', 'Raj Ratnakar' and Mewari Khyats do not mention this incident.

Regards,
Virendra

Thank you so that is just a story. I myself did not know much about what sources say but had some doubt about the story on basis of common sense.

 

[Simple_Guy]

Panoramic view of CHittorgarh Fort

Rana Hammir Sesodia liberated the fort and defeated the sultan of Delhi in the 13th century.

Now, suppose, the Rawal of Dungarpur had liberated the fort. Then what would have been the surname of the Chittor rulers instead of Sesodia??

 

[Pratap]

Panoramic view of CHittorgarh Fort

Rana Hammir Sesodia liberated the fort and defeated the sultan of Delhi in the 13th century.

Now, suppose, the Rawal of Dungarpur had liberated the fort. Then what would have been the surname of the Chittor rulers instead of Sesodia??

Hammir Sesodia liberated it after Khilji's death so it falls in 14th century actually.

 

[Virendra]

Rana Hammir Sesodia liberated the fort and defeated the sultan of Delhi in the 13th century.

Now, suppose, the Rawal of Dungarpur had liberated the fort. Then what would have been the surname of the Chittor rulers instead of Sesodia??

The surname of Chittor rulers is Sisodia because Chittor's liberator Rana Hamir was born at 'Sisoda' village in 14th century.
Dungarpur was established before this happened. It was ruled by an elder branch of Guhilots that went out of Chittor towards Bagad in 12th century.
The surname would either continue as 'Guhilot' or change to something that relates to the liberator (in this hypothesis).

Regards,.
Virendra

 

[Simple_Guy]

That's correct. Both the Ranas of Sesoda as well as the Rawals of Dungarpur were branches of the main Guhilot line. They both came for the defence of Chittorgarh against Khilji. Rawal Veer Singh Dev of Dungarpur was sixth in descent from Rawal Sawant Singh.

Rawal Veer Singh was killed in the sack of Chittor. He was succeeded by Bhachundi who erected the Hanumat Pol. After him, Rawal Dungar Singh settled the place into modern Dungarpur, named after himself. Rawal Gopinath who succeeded him is famous for his victory over Ahmedshah, the Sultan of Gujarat in 1433 and it was he who built the Gaipsagar lake at Dungarpur which is today a birdwatchers paradise.

The amazing thing is that the Rawals of Dungarpur started calling themselves Ahariya Sesodia, instead of Ahariya Guhilot, their old name. This illustrates the total dominance of the Sesodias in Mewar and their repeated victories over the Muslims, which made them head of the Hindus: Hindupat!

 

[Simple_Guy]

The 18 chief nobles of Mewar:

Salumber
Bhindar
Bhainsrorgarh
Sadri
Bedla
Kotharia
Ghanerao
Deogarh
Bijolia
Begun
Delwara
Amet
Gogunda
Kanor
Badnor
Bansi
Parsoli
Kurabar

@Pratap @Virendra what is common in this list of estates?