List of Rajput dynasties and states

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During the medieval and later feudal/colonial periods, many parts of the Indian subcontinent were ruled as sovereign or princely states by various dynasties of Rajputs.

Contents

The Rajputs rose to political prominence after the large empires of ancient India broke into smaller ones. The Rajputs became prominent in the early medieval period in about seventh century and dominated in regions now known as Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Western Gangetic plains and Bundelkhand. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

However, the term "Rajput" has been used as an anachronistic designation for Hindu dynasties before the 16th century because the Rajput identity for a lineage did not exist before this time, and these lineages were classified as aristocratic Rajput clans in the later times. Thus, the term "Rajput" does not occur in Muslim sources before the 16th century. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]

During their centuries-long rule of northern India, the Rajputs constructed several palaces. Shown here is the Chandramahal in City Palace, Jaipur, Rajasthan, which was built by the Kachwaha Rajputs. Jaipur 03-2016 19 City Palace complex.jpg
During their centuries-long rule of northern India, the Rajputs constructed several palaces. Shown here is the Chandramahal in City Palace, Jaipur, Rajasthan, which was built by the Kachwaha Rajputs.

List

Following is the list of those ruling Rajput dynasties of the Indian Subcontinent:

See also

Related Research Articles

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The Rajputana Agency was a political office of the British Indian Empire dealing with a collection of native states in Rajputana, under the political charge of an Agent reporting directly to the Governor-General of India and residing at Mount Abu in the Aravalli Range. The total area of the states falling within the Rajputana Agency was 127,541 square miles (330,330 km2), with eighteen states and two estates or chiefships.

Rajput, also called Thakur, is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. The term Rajput covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood: several clans claim Rajput status, although not all claims are universally accepted. According to modern scholars, almost all Rajput clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty</span> Mid-8th to 11th century northern India dynasty

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sisodia dynasty</span> Royal Rajput dynasty of Rajasthan

The Sisodia was an Indian royal dynasty belonging to the clan that ruled over the Kingdom of Mewar, in the region of Mewar in Rajasthan. The name of the clan is also transliterated as Sesodia, Shishodia, Sishodia, Shishodya, Sisodya, Sisodiya, Sisodia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marwar</span> Region in Rajasthan, India

Marwar is a region of western Rajasthan state in North Western India. It lies partly in the Thar Desert. The word 'maru' is Sanskrit for desert. In Rajasthani languages, "wad" means a protected area. English translation of the word 'marwar' is the region protected by desert.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chauhan Dynasty</span> Clan that ruled parts of northern India in the medieval period

Chauhan, a name derived from the historical Chahamanas, a clan name associated with various ruling Rajput families in the present-day Indian state of Rajasthan from seventh century onwards.

Parmar, also known as Panwar or Pawar, is a Rajput clan found in Northern and Central India, especially in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and North Maharashtra. The Panwar ruled in Ujjain and later in Dhar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chandelas of Jejakabhukti</span> Early medieval Hindu dynasty of India

The Chandelas of Jejakabhukti was an Indian dynasty in Central India. The Chandelas ruled much of the Bundelkhand region between the 9th and the 13th centuries. They belonged to the Chandel clan of the Rajputs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rathore dynasty</span> North Indian dynasty

The Rathore dynasty or Rathor dynasty was an Indian dynasty belonging to the Rathore clan of Rajputs that has historically ruled over parts of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

Guhila is a clan of Rajputs. They ruled a number of kingdoms and principalities including Mitaron, Mewar, Banswara, Dungarpur, Pratapgarh, Shahpura, Bhavnagar, Palitana, Lathi and Vala.

Solanki also known as Chaulukya is a clan name originally associated with the Rajputs in Northern India but which has also been borrowed by other communities such as the Saharias as a means of advancement by the process of sanskritisation. Other groups that use the name include the Bhils of Rajasthan, Koḷis, Ghān̄cīs, Kumbhārs, Bāroṭs, Kaḍiyās, Darjīs, Mocīs, Ḍheḍhs, and Bhangīs.

Rajput is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Rajput covers various patrilineal clans historically associated with warriorhood: several clans claim Rajput status, although not all claims are universally accepted. According to modern scholars, almost all Rajputs clans originated from peasant or pastoral communities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maldeo Rathore</span> Rao of Marwar (1511–1562)

Rao Maldeo Rathore was a king of the Rathore dynasty, who ruled the kingdom of Marwar in present day state of Rajasthan. Maldeo ascended the throne in 1531 CE, inheriting a small ancestral principality of Rathore's but after a long period of military actions against his neighbours, Maldeo swept significant territories which included parts of present day Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Sindh. He refused to ally with either the Sur Empire or the Mughal Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Rajasthan</span> Brief history of the Indian state of Rajasthan

The history of human settlement in the western Indian state of Rajasthan dates back to about 100,000 years ago. Around 5000 to 2000 BCE many regions of Rajasthan belonged as the site of the Indus Valley Civilization. Kalibangan is the main Indus site of Rajasthan, here fire altars have been discovered, similar to those found at Lothal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kingdom of Mewar</span> Former kingdom in the Indian subcontinent

The Kingdom of Mewar was an independent kingdom that existed in the Rajputana region of the Indian subcontinent and later became a major power in medieval India. The kingdom was initially founded and ruled by the Guhila dynasty followed by the Sisodiya Dynasty. The earliest kingdom was centered around the south-central part of Rajasthan, state of India. It was bordered by the Aravali Range to the northwest, Ajmer to the north, Gujarat, Vagad and Malwa regions to the south and the Hadoti region to the east.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paramara dynasty</span> Indian Rajput dynasty

The House of Paramara is a prominent Indian Rajput dynasty that ruled over the Kingdom of Malwa, the Garhwal Kingdom, and many other kingdoms, princely states and feudal estates in North India. They belong to the Parmara clan of the Rajputs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chaulukya dynasty</span> Indian dynasty that ruled Gujarat from c. 940 to 1244

The Chaulukya dynasty, also Solanki dynasty, was a dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Gujarat in western India, between c. 940 CE and c. 1244 CE. Their capital was located at Anahilavada. At times, their rule extended to the Malwa region in present-day Madhya Pradesh. The family is also known as the "Solanki dynasty" in the vernacular literature. They belonged to the Solanki clan of Rajputs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chahamanas of Shakambhari</span> Dynasty that ruled Sapadalaksha

The Chahamanas of Shakambhari, colloquially known as the Chauhans of Sambhar or Chauhans of Ajmer, were an Indian dynasty that ruled parts of the present-day Rajasthan and neighbouring areas in India, between the 6th and 12th centuries. The territory ruled by them was known as Sapadalaksha. They were the most prominent ruling family of the Chahamana (Chauhan) Rajput clan.

The Guhilas of Medapata colloquially known as Guhilas of Mewar were a Rajput dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Mewar region in present-day Rajasthan state of India. The Guhila kings initially ruled as Gurjara-Pratihara feudatories between the end of 8th and 9th centuries and later were independent in period of the early 10th century and allied themselves with the Rashtrakutas. Their capitals included Nagahrada (Nagda) and Aghata (Ahar). For this reason, they are also known as the Nagda-Ahar branch of the Guhilas.

References

  1. Hermann kulke (2004). A History of India. Psychology Press. p. 116. ISBN   978-0-415-32920-0. When Harsha shifted the centre of north India history to Kannauj in mids of Ganga-Jamuna doab the tribes living in the west of this new centre also became more important for further courses of Indian history. They were first and foremost the Rajputs who now emerged into limelight of Indian history
  2. Sailendra Nath Sen (1999). Ancient Indian History and Civilization. New Age International. p. 307. ISBN   978-81-224-1198-0. The anarchy and confusion which followed the death of Harsha is a transitional period of history. This period was marked by the rise of the Rajput clans who began to play a conspicuous part in the history of northern and western India from eighth century A.D. onwards
  3. Alain Danielou (2003). A Brief History of India. Simon and Schuster. p. 87. ISBN   978-1-59477-794-3. The Rajputs The rise of Rajputs in the history of northern and central India is considerable, as they dominated the scene between the death of Harsha and the establishment of the Muslim Empire
  4. Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (2006). Studying Early India: Archaeology, Texts and Historical Issues. Anthem. p. 116. ISBN   978-1-84331-132-4. The period between the seventh and the twelfth century witnessed gradual rise of a number of new royal-lineages in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, which came to constitute a social-political category known as 'Rajput'. Some of the major lineages were the Pratiharas of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and adjacent areas, the Guhilas and Chahamanas of Rajasthan, the Caulukyas or Solankis of Gujarat and Rajasthan and the Paramaras of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
  5. Satish Chandra (1996). Historiography, Religion, and State in Medieval India. Har-Anand Publications. p. 115. ISBN   978-81-241-0035-6. "In north India, dominant features of the period between 7th and 12th centuries have been identified as the growing weakness of state; the growth of power of local landed elittes and their decentralising authority by acquiring greater administrative, economic and political roles, the decline of towns, the setback to trades, This period between 7th to 12th century is also noted for rise of Rajputs
  6. Sara R. Farris (5 September 2013). Max Weber's Theory of Personality: Individuation, Politics and Orientalism in the Sociology of Religion. BRILL. p. 145. ISBN   978-90-04-25409-1. "In about the eight century the Rajput thus began to perform the functions that had formerly belonged to the Kshatriya, assuming their social and economic position and substituting them as the new warrior class
  7. Eugenia Vanina (2012). Medieval Indian Mindscapes: Space, Time, Society, Man. Primus Books. p. 140. ISBN   978-93-80607-19-1. By the period of seventh–eights centuries AD when the first references to the Rajput clans and their chieftains were made
  8. Peter Robb (21 June 2011). A History of India. Macmillan International Higher Education. p. 103. ISBN   978-0-230-34549-2. From around 1000 ce notable among these regional powers were various Rajput dynasties in the west and north
  9. Burton Stein (2010). Arnold, D. (ed.). A History of India (2nd ed.). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. p. 109. The Rajput claim as a community were recorded in Sanskrit inscriptions that constituted as well as recorded in Rajasthan during the seventh century, when Rajputs begins to make themselves lords of various localities
  10. David Ludden (2013). India and South Asia: A Short History. Oneworld Publications. pp. 88–. ISBN   978-1-78074-108-6. By contrast in Rajasthan a single warrior group evolved called Rajput (from Rajaputra-sons of kings): they rarely engaged in farming, even to supervise farm labour as farming was literally beneath them, farming was for their peasant subjects. In the ninth century separate clans of Rajputs Cahamanas (Chauhans), Paramaras (Pawars), Guhilas (Sisodias) and Caulukyas were splitting off from sprawling Gurjara Pratihara clans...
  11. Talbot 2015, p. 33-35.
  12. Peabody, Norbert (2003). Hindu Kingship and Polity in Precolonial India. Cambridge University Press. pp. 38–. ISBN   978-0-521-46548-9. As Dirk Kolff has argued, it was privileged, if not initially inspired, only in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Mughal perceptions of Rajputs which, in a pre-form of orientalism, took patrilineal descent as the basis for Rajput social Organization and consequently as the basis for their political inclusion into the empire. Prior to the Mughals, the term 'Rajput' was equally an open-ended, generic name applied to any '"horse soldier", "trooper", or "headman of a village"' regardless of parentage, who achieved his status through his personal ability to establish a wide network of supporters through his bhaibandh (lit. 'ie or bond of brothers'; that is, close collateral relations by male blood) or by means of naukari (military service to a more powerful overlord) and sagai (alliance through marriage). Thus the language of kinship remained nonetheless strong in this alternative construction of Rajput identity but collateral and affinal bonds were stressed rather than those of descent. During the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
  13. Jackson, Peter (2003). The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 9–. ISBN   978-0-521-54329-3. Confronting the Ghurid ruler now were a number of major Hindu powers, for which the designation 'Rajput' (not encountered in the Muslim sources before the sixteenth century) is a well-established anachronism. Chief among them was the Chahamana (Chawhan) kingdom of Shakambhari (Sambhar), which dominated present-day Rajasthan from its capital at Ajmer
  14. Bayly, Susan (2001). Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge University Press. pp. 39–. ISBN   978-0-521-79842-6. Yet the varna archetype of the Kshatriya-like man of prowess did become a key reference point for rulers and their subjects under the Mughals and their immediate successors. The chiefs and warriors whom the Mughals came to honour as Rajput lords in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may not even have been descendants of Rajasthan's earlier pre-Mughal elites.
  15. Behl, Aditya (2012). Wendy Doniger (ed.). Love's Subtle Magic: An Indian Islamic Literary Tradition, 1379-1545. Oxford University Press. pp. 364–. ISBN   978-0-19-514670-7. The term Rajput is a retrospective invention, as most of the martial literature of resistance to Turkish conquest dates only from the mid-fifteenth century onward. As Dirk Kolff has noted in his Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), the invention of "Rajput" identity can be dated to the sixteenth-century narratives of nostalgia for lost honor and territory.
  16. Richard M. Eaton (25 July 2019). India in the Persianate Age: 1000-1765. Penguin UK. pp. 51–. ISBN   978-0-14-196655-7. OCLC   1088599361. Often projected back to the twelfth century or even earlier, the term 'Rajput' has been called a 'well-established anachronism
  17. Ashutosh Kumar (2017). Rethinking State Politics in India. Taylor and Francis group. p. 400. ISBN   978-1-138-22886-3.
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  20. Melia Belli Bose (2015). Royal Umbrellas of Stone: Memory, Politics, and Public Identity in Rajput Funerary Art. Brill. p. 248. ISBN   9789004300569. These lofty cenotaphs commemorate the Sisodia Rajput rulers of Mewar and fashion a distinctive posthumous identity for them.
  21. Dhananajaya Singh (1994). The House of Marwar. Lotus Collection, Roli Books. p. 13. He was the head of the Rathore clan of Rajputs, a clan which besides Jodhpur had ruled over Bikaner, Kishengarh, Idar, Jhabhua, Sitamau, Sailana, Alirajpur and Ratlam, all States important enough to merit gun salutes in the British system of protocol. These nine Rathore States collectively brought to India territory not less than 60,000 square miles in area.
  22. Satish Chandra (2006). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals (1206–1526). Vol. 1. Har-Anand Publications. p. 19. ISBN   978-81-241-1064-5. The middle of the tenth century saw the decay of two of the most powerful Rajput states which had dominated northern and central India during precedding centuries. These were Gurjara Pratihara Empire with their capital at Kannauj the first of the major Rajput kingdom
  23. Mala Dayal (August 2010). Celebrating Delhi. Penguin UK. ISBN   978-81-8475-273-1.
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  29. J. Mark Baker (2011). The Kuhls of Kangra: Community-Managed Irrigation in the Western Himalaya. University of Washington Press. p. 101. ISBN   978-0-295-80091-2.
  30. Ramachandra Guha (2000). The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya. University of California Press. p. 63. ISBN   9780520222359.
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Bibliography