Perso Indica

[Preliminary Entry] Purportedly the first extant history of Gwalior fort written in Persian, started during the reign of Akbar (r. 1556-1605) and completed under Šāh Jahān (r. 1628-58). Said to have been written following “an order of the government”, the work can be divided into three main parts. The first one is based on an earlier (and now lost) Hindi account by one Ghanshyām Pandit who belonged to a family of Gwaliori Brahmans. It starts with a legendary account of Gwalior’s foundation by the Kačhwāha Rājpūt Sūraj Sen/Pāl in obedience to the order of a yogi named Gwālīpā (315 years before Hijra) and ends in 980/1573. The second part contains a brief account of the Sufi saints of Gwalior with particular emphasis on the šaṭṭārī šayḫ Muḥammad Ġawt, the author’s pīr, and the Čištī Ḫwāja Ḫanu. The third part provides four lists detailing the kings and qal‘adārs of the fortress, all of them being also probably based on the work of Ghanshyām Pandit: i) a list of the 84 Kačhwāha rājas who ruled over the fortress under the title of Pāl; ii) a list of 7 Parīhar rājas, here called Panwars; iii) a list covering the period from Sulṭān Iltutmiš (r. 1210-36) to 1516 and including the names of ten Tomar rulers, here also called Panwars; iv) a list of the qal‘adārs and other Muslim officers appointed to the fortress from the time Sulṭān Bahlūl Lodī (r. 1451-89) to Akbar.

C. L.