We Find In Hammer And D'Ohsson That One Of The Causes Which Led To The War
Between Barka Khan And Hulaku In 1262 (See Above, Prologue, Ch.
Ii.) was
the violent end that had befallen three princes of the House of Juji, who
had accompanied Hulaku to Persia in command of the contingent of that
House.
When war actually broke out, the contingent made their escape from
Persia. One party gained Kipchak by way of Derbend; another, in greater
force, led by NIGUDAR and Onguja, escaped to Khorasan, pursued by the
troops of Hulaku, and thence eastward, where they seized upon Ghazni and
other districts bordering on India.
But again: Nigudar Aghul, or Oghlan, son of (the younger) Juji, son of
Chaghatai, was the leader of the Chaghataian contingent in Hulaku's
expedition, and was still attached to the Mongol-Persian army in 1269,
when Borrak Khan, of the House of Chaghatai, was meditating war against
his kinsman, Abaka of Persia. Borrak sent to the latter an ambassador, who
was the bearer of a secret message to Prince Nigudar, begging him not to
serve against the head of his own House. Nigudar, upon this, made a
pretext of retiring to his own headquarters in Georgia, hoping to reach
Borrak's camp by way of Derbend. He was, however, intercepted, and lost
many of his people. With 1000 horse he took refuge in Georgia, but was
refused an asylum, and was eventually captured by Abaka's commander on
that frontier. His officers were executed, his troops dispersed among
Abaka's army, and his own life spared under surveillance. I find no more
about him. In 1278 Hammer speaks of him as dead, and of the Nigudarian
bands as having been formed out of his troops. But authority is not given.
The second Nigudar is evidently the one to whom Abu'l Fazl alludes.
Khanikoff assumes that the Nigudar who went off towards India about 1260
(he puts the date earlier) was Nigudar, the grandson of Chaghatai, but he
takes no notice of the second story just quoted.
In the former story we have bands under Nigudar going off by Ghazni,
and conquering country on the Indian frontier. In the latter we have
Nigudar, a descendant of Chaghatai, trying to escape from his camp on
the frontier of Great Armenia. Supposing the Persian historians to be
correct, it looks as if Marco had rolled two stories into one.
Some other passages may be cited before quitting this part of the subject.
A chronicle of Herat, translated by Barbier de Meynard, says, under 1298:
"The King Fakhruddin (of Herat) had the imprudence to authorise the Amir
Nigudar to establish himself in a quarter of the city, with 300
adventurers from 'Irak. This little troop made frequent raids in Kuhistan,
Sijistan, Farrah, etc., spreading terror. Khodabanda, at the request of
his brother Ghazan Khan, came from Mazanderan to demand the immediate
surrender of these brigands," etc. And in the account of the tremendous
foray of the Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, on the east and south of
Persia in 1299, we find one of his captains called Nigudar Bahadur.
(Gold. Horde, 146, 157, 164; D'Ohsson, IV. 378 seqq., 433 seqq., 513
seqq.; Ilch. I. 216, 261, 284; II. 104; J. A. ser. V. tom. xvii.
455-456, 507; Khan. Notice, 31.)
As regards the route taken by Prince Nogodar in his incursion into India,
we have no difficulty with BADAKHSHAN. PASHAI-DIR is a copulate name; the
former part, as we shall see reason to believe hereafter, representing the
country between the Hindu Kush and the Kabul River (see infra, ch. xxx.);
the latter (as Pauthier already has pointed out), DIR, the chief town of
Panjkora, in the hill country north of Peshawar. In Ariora-Keshemur the
first portion only is perplexing. I will mention the most probable of the
solutions that have occurred to me, and a second, due to that eminent
archaeologist, General A. Cunningham. (1) Ariora may be some corrupt or
Mongol form of Aryavartta, a sacred name applied to the Holy Lands of
Indian Buddhism, of which Kashmir was eminently one to the Northern
Buddhists. Oron, in Mongol, is a Region or Realm, and may have taken the
place of Vartta, giving Aryoron or Ariora. (2) "Ariora," General
Cunningham writes, "I take to be the Harhaura of Sanscrit - i.e. the
Western Panjab. Harhaura was the North-Western Division of the Nava-
Khanda, or Nine Divisions of Ancient India. It is mentioned between
Sindhu-Sauvira in the west (i.e. Sind), and Madra in the north (i.e.
the Eastern Panjab, which is still called Madar-Des). The name of
Harhaura is, I think, preserved in the Haro River. Now, the Sind-Sagor
Doab formed a portion of the kingdom of Kashmir, and the joint names, like
those of Sindhu-Sauvira, describe only one State." The names of the Nine
Divisions in question are given by the celebrated astronomer, Varaha
Mihira, who lived in the beginning of the 6th century, and are repeated by
Al Biruni. (See Reinaud, Mem. sur l'Inde, p. 116.) The only objection to
this happy solution seems to lie in Al Biruni's remark, that the names in
question were in general no longer used even in his time (A.D. 1030).
There can be no doubt that Asidin Soldan is, as Khanikoff has said,
Ghaiassuddin Balban, Sultan of Delhi from 1266 to 1286, and for years
before that a man of great power in India, and especially in the Panjab,
of which he had in the reign of Ruknuddin (1236) held independent
possession.
Firishta records several inroads of Mongols in the Panjab during the reign
of Ghaiassuddin, in withstanding one of which that King's eldest son was
slain; and there are constant indications of their presence in Sind till
the end of the century. But we find in that historian no hint of the chief
circumstances of this part of the story, viz., the conquest of Kashmir and
the occupation of Dalivar or Dilivar (G. T.), evidently (whatever its
identity) in the plains of India.
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