6. Alla and Udal of the Rohil Banafar clan:
The exploits of three Rajput heroes, Alla, Usal and Malkhan, are sung in the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab even today, and mention is made therein of the brave Rohillas having fought shoulder to shoulder with them. These warriors were the contemporaries of Prithvi Raj Chohan, and were soldiers of fortune. It is said that at first they were in the army of Raja Parmal of Bundel Khand, but later on they took service with Raja Jai Chand of Karruj, where they held high positions in his army. When Raja Parmal was attacked by Prithvi Raj Chohan, they were persuaded to return to Mohaba, one of the headquarters of the Government of Parmal. They fought to the last against Prithvi Raj Chohan and it is a pity that the Rajputs could not combine at a time when Mohammad Ghori was thundering at the gates of India.
Who were these three heroes and which clan did they come from? We have mentioned elsewhere that the Rohilla Rajputs were found across the Ganges. Moreover, the clan to which Alla and his brothers belonged has been called by a Hindi Poet as “Rohail Banafars”. Prithvi Raj Chohan always regarded them as an inferior kind of Rajputs. It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that these Rohail Banafars Alla and Udal and their kinsmen must have been immigrants from Roh Desh.
Entry of the Rohillas into Marwar and Gujarat:
Elsewhere we have referred to an inscription in Sanskrit on a Shiv Temple in Kathiawar (Gujrat), which mentions a General named Lunig. He was a Rohilla Chief who had come from Marwar and had entered Saurashtra as the head of the army. He and his descendants settled down there. Then was born in his family one Raj Singh, who married the daughter of Khem Raj, a Baghela Chief, who had also come from Marwar. The son of Raj Singh was Rohilla Maldev, whose grandfather Khem Raj had helped Khangar to beat back the Muslim king Mohammad Tughlak when he had encircled Rawatpir and Junagarh. A reference to Rohilla Maldev in the inscription establishes the fact beyond any shadow of doubt that the Rohillas have a historical background and not only were they found in Marwar but also in Saurashtra. History is silent as to what happened to these people after the Fourteenth Century. It appears, however, that they were forced to retire into obscurity after Gujrat fell into the hands of the Tak Chief, Raja Saharan, who had embraced Islam and whose descendants had set up an independent Muslim kingdom there. We shall refer to him again later on.
The point for consideration now is whether there is any place in Marwar which can be associated with the Rohillas. We cannot name it with definiteness, but in the history of Rajputana (Volume 1) by Pandit Gauri Shankar Ojha, we come across two inscriptions. Pandit Ojha says on Page 166: ‘Mandor is a place four miles away from Jodhpur where some inscriptions have been found. These inscriptions give an account of the origin of the clan of the Pratihars. One of these inscriptions is also found in the Fort of Jodhpur, which previously was on a Shiv Temple. One of the them is in Prakrit. Both of them refer to 917 of Vikram Era. From these inscriptions we learn that there was Harish Chandra who was a scholar of Sanskrit. He was Pratihar or Viceroy of the place. His title was “Rohil Ladhi”. This title of Harish Chandra clearly indicates that he ruled the place on behalf of some Rohilla king of the region, where the Rohillas must have been living. Luing of the Sanskrit inscription of 1445, the Vikram Era, previously referred to, may have been of this region, from where he led an army into Saurashtra.
Moreover, in Ghatial in Marwar was also a village called Rohinskop, with this inscription can be associated. From what is mentioned in the inscriptions referred to above, we can safely conclude that the Rohilla Rajputs, after their migration from Roh Desh, must have gone as far as Marwar and established themselves there as well.
Rohillas of Mahecha Gotra:
There is a clan among the Rohilla Rajputs, the gotra of which is “Mahecha”. According to Bhim Raj this clan claims descent from one Mohan Das who held a high position in the Army of the King of Ghazni. After his death his brother Sita Ram made his way to Bhutan, where he too lost his wife while engaged in fighting against billmen. His son Ratan Chand migrated to India and settled down in Ujjain. In the seventh line of descent to him was one Mohan Pal, whose younger brother entered the Maratha Army and was appointed as Governor of Kailai, now in Punjab Pepsu. In the third battle if Panipat, a descendant of his lost his life. There after his family settled down in the district of Ambala, where their descendants are still said to be continuing the line.
