The Kings of Malwa or Ujjain who reigned at Dhar and flourished from
the ninth to the twelfth centuries were of the Panwar clan. The
seventh and ninth kings of this dynasty rendered it famous. [378]
"Raja Munja, the seventh king (974-995), renowned for his learning
and eloquence, was not only a patron of poets, but was himself a poet
of no small reputation, the anthologies including various works from
his pen. He penetrated in a career of conquest as far as the Godavari,
but was finally defeated and executed there by the Chalukya king. His
nephew, the famous Bhoja, ascended the throne of Dhara about A.D. 1018
and reigned gloriously for more than forty years. Like his uncle he
cultivated with equal assiduity the arts of peace and war. Though his
fights with neighbouring powers, including one of the Muhammadan armies
of Mahmud of Ghazni, are now forgotten, his fame as an enlightened
patron of learning and a skilled author remains undimmed, and his
name has become proverbial as that of the model king according to the
Hindu standard. Works on astronomy, architecture, the art of poetry
and other subjects are attributed to him. About A.D. 1060 Bhoja was
attacked and defeated by the confederate kings of Gujarat and Chedi,
and the Panwar kingdom was reduced to a petty local dynasty until
the thirteenth century. It was finally superseded by the chiefs of
the Tomara and Chauhan clans, who in their turn succumbed to the
Muhammadans in 1401." The city of Ujjain was at this time a centre of
Indian intellectual life. Some celebrated astronomers made it their
home, and it was adopted as the basis of the Hindu meridional system
like Greenwich in England. The capital of the state was changed from
Ujjain to Dhar or Dharanagra by the Raja Bhoja already mentioned;
[379] and the name of Dhar is better remembered in connection with
the Panwars than Ujjain.
A saying about it quoted by Colonel Tod was:
Jahan Puar tahan Dhar hai;
Aur Dhar jahan Puar;
Dhar bina Puar nahin;
Aur nahin Puar bina Dhar:
or, "Where the Panwar is there is Dhar, and Dhar is where the Panwar
is; without the Panwars Dhar cannot stand, nor the Panwars without
Dhar." It is related that in consequence of one of his merchants having
been held to ransom by the ruler of Dhar, the Bhatti Raja of Jaisalmer
made a vow to subdue the town. But as he found the undertaking too
great for him, in order to fulfil his vow he had a model of the city
made in clay and was about to break it up. But there were Panwars in
his army, and they stood out to defend their mock capital, repeating as
their reason the above lines; and in resisting the Raja were cut to
pieces to the number of a hundred and twenty. [380] There is little
reason to doubt that the incident, if historical, was produced by
the belief in sympathetic magic; the Panwars really thought that
by destroying its image the Raja could effect injury to the capital
itself, [381] just as many primitive races believe that if they make
a doll as a model of an enemy and stick pins into or otherwise injure
it, the man himself is similarly affected. A kindred belief prevails
concerning certain mythical old kings of the Golden Age of India,
of whom it is said that to destroy their opponents all they had to
do was to collect a bundle of juari stalks and cut off the heads,
when the heads of their enemies flew off in unison.
The Panwars were held to have ruled from nine castles over the
Marusthali or 'Region of death,' the name given to the great desert of
Rajputana, which extends from Sind to the Aravalli mountains and from
the great salt lake to the flat skirting the Garah. The principal of
these castles were Abu, Nundore, Umarkot, Arore, and Lodorva. [382]
And, 'The world is the Pramara's,' was another saying expressive of
the resplendent position of Dharanagra or Ujjain at this epoch. The
siege and capture of the town by the Muhammadans and consequent
expulsion of the Panwars are still a well-remembered tradition, and
certain castes of the Central Provinces, as the Bhoyars and Korkus,
say that their ancestors formed part of the garrison and fled to
the Satpura hills after the fall of Dharanagra. Mr. Crooke [383]
states that the expulsion of the Panwars from Ujjain under their
leader Mitra Sen is ascribed to the attack of the Muhammadans under
Shahab-ud-din Ghori about A.D. 1190.