Jina m. butchart: Starting Some Entry W/ Sources

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Starting Some Entry W/ Sources

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{{distinguish|text=[[Prithu]], named in the [[Vedas|Vedic scriptures]] of ancient India}}
{{Use Indian English|date=June 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2024}}

'''Prithu''' is a name used by some historians for a ruler associated with early thirteenth-century Kamrup (present-day Assam), particularly in connection with the defeat of [[Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji|Bakhtiyar Khalji]] following his Tibet campaign. The figure is derived from the [[Tabaqat-i Nasiri|Tabaqat-i-Nasiri]], a Persian chronicle by Juzjani, which refers to a rebel named Britū, described as having killed large numbers of Muslims before being defeated by [[Mahmud I of Delhi|Nasir ud din Mahmud Shah]]. Some scholars have identified this figure with the contemporaneous King of Kamrup who had repelled Bakhtiyar’s forces. Others reject this identification, deeming Prithu instead as a rebel in Awadh as asserted by Juzjani, and attributing the resistance in Kamrup to rulers attested in inscriptional records. In recent years, Prithu has gained prominence in Assam as a regional symbol of Hindu resistance against Muslim aggression.

== Background ==
The immediate history of Kamrup following the extinction of the [[Pala dynasty (Kamarupa)|indigenous Pala dynasty]] remains uncertain, particularly with regard to the identities of the rulers.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Ghosh |first=Suchandra |date=2010 |title=Kamarupa and Early Bengal: Understanding Their Political Relationship |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44147478 |journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress |volume=71 |pages=110–118 |issn=2249-1937}}</ref> The undated Kamauli copper plate inscription, generally assigned to c. 1139 C.E., indicates that Kamrupa had come under the suzerainty of the [[Pala Empire|Pala Empire of Gauda (Bengal)]]; it records Vaidyadeva, in the fourth year of his rule, as governing the province under [[Kumarapala (Pala king)|Kumarapala]] after having suppressed a rebellion by Tingyadeva, the previous governor who had declared independence.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Sharma |first=Mukunda Madhava |title=Inscriptions of Ancient Assam |publisher=Gauhati University |year=1978 |location=Assam |pages=273-301 |language=en}}</ref>

The Tejpur copper-plates of Vallabhadeva, dated to 1185 C.E., provides a list of three rulers—Rayarideva Trailokyasimha, Udayakarna Nishankasimha, and Vallabhadeva Srivallabha—in succession, from the lineage of one Bhaskara.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /> Although historians initially questioned the relevance of the record because Kamrupa is not explicitly named and the characteristic elephant seal is missing, the donated land tracts mentioned in the inscription have since been identified within Kamrupa proper.<ref name=":4" /> Contemporary Pala inscriptions from these decades and literary sources record periodic expeditions against Kamrupa, pointing to tumultuous times, but the names of the rulers are left unmentioned.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":4" /> In addition, the two-line [[:bn:কানাই_বরশী_বোয়া_শিলালিপি|Kanaibarasi rock inscription]] briefly records how in March 1206, the Turks perished upon reaching Kamrupa.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chakravarti |first=Ranabir |date=1999 |title=Early Medieval Bengal and the Trade in Horses: A Note |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3632335 |journal=Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=201 |issn=0022-4995}}</ref>

==Sources==
In the [[Tabaqat-i Nasiri]], [[Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani]] credits his patron [[Mahmud I of Delhi|Nasir ud din Mahmud Shah]] with defeating one Bartū/Britū—described as responsible for the deaths of over a million Muslims—while suppressing rebels in Awadh under [[Iltutmish]];<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Bhattasali |first=Nalini Kanta |date=March 1946 |title=New Lights on the History of Assam: Assam during 1150-1250 A.D (The first Defenders of Assam’s Freedom) |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.100858/page/n17/mode/1up |journal=The Indian Historical Quarterly |volume=XXII |issue=1 |pages=4-6}}</ref> [[Henry George Raverty|H. G. Raverty]], who translated the work into English, proposed emending the name to Prithu but observed that no other source described such a King.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Juzjani |title=T̤abakāt-i-Nāṣirī |publisher=Gilbert and Rivington |year=1881 |volume=II |location=London |pages=629 |language=en |translator-last=Raverty |translator-first=H.G. |trans-title=A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, Including Hindustān; from A.H. 194 (810 A.D.) to A.H. 658 (1260 A.D.) and the Irruption of the Infidel Mughals Into Islām}}</ref> After these campaigns in Awadh, Juzjani records Nasir ud din to have marched to [[Lakhnauti]] against [[Iwaz Khalji|Ghiyās ud-Dīn Iwaz Khalji]], the regional governor of Bengal who had declared independence, in 1227; however, elsewhere in the chronicle, while recounting Iwaz's career, he adds that Nasir ud din also waged war against Kamrup alongside Bengal.<ref name=":0" />

A couple of decades before Nasir ud din's campaigns, Juzjani recorded how the King of Kamrup had inflicted heavy losses on the already depleted army of [[Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji|Bakhtiyar Khalji]] following his disastrous Tibet campaign.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Juzjani |title=T̤abakāt-i-Nāṣirī |publisher=Gilbert and Rivington |year=1881 |volume=I |location=London |pages=569-571 |language=en |translator-last=Raverty |translator-first=H.G. |trans-title=A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, Including Hindustān; from A.H. 194 (810 A.D.) to A.H. 658 (1260 A.D.) and the Irruption of the Infidel Mughals Into Islām}}</ref> While en route to Tibet, Bakhtiyar crossed a major river in Kamrup via a stone bridge{{Efn|Pace Raverty's objections, Bhattasali accepted this bridge to have been the [[Silsako]]; Sircar agrees.}} and realizing the importance of the structure, even left two officers to guard it.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /> By the time he returned, however, the bridge had been partially dismantled by locals after the guards developed discord and abandoned their posts; Bakhtiyar’s men were thus stranded and took refuge in a nearby temple while attempting to improvise a crossing.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /> In the meanwhile, the King mobilized his subjects to besiege the temple, forcing them to dash toward the river and attempt crossing it immediately; most perished in the water, while Bakhtiyar escaped with only a small number of horsemen.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" />

== Identification ==

===Early Speculations===
[[Wolseley Haig]], writing in [[The Cambridge History of India]], suggested that the figure of Britū/Prithu might correspond to the contemporaneous King of Kamrupa.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Haig |first=Wolseley |title=The Cambridge History of India |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1928 |editor-last=Haig |editor-first=Wolseley |volume=III: Turks and Afghans |location=Cambridge |pages=49-50, 54, 514 |language=en}}</ref> [[Kanaklal Barua|K. L. Barua]] supported Haig's tentative identification, arguing that the contemporary history of Awadh records no rebel of comparable prominence and suggesting that Juzjani had likely erred in his chronology by placing the campaign against Prithu in Nasir ud din's days at Awadh.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Barua |first=Kanaklal |title=Early history of Kamarupa |year=1933 |location=Shillong |pages=224-227 |language=en}}</ref> He further adduced evidence from the [[Yogini Tantra]], a 16th- or 17th-century tantric text from the region that mentions a Shaiva king named Jalpeśvar ruling Kamrupa and constructing a [[Jalpesh Temple|eponymous temple]]; from local traditions of early nineteenth century, recorded by [[Francis Buchanan-Hamilton|Francis Buchanan]], that attributed the ruins of the fort city at [[Bhitargarh]] (located in present-day [[Rangpur, Bangladesh]])—situated about twenty-five kilometres from the temple—to a King Prithu;{{Efn|Buchanan noted that local informants could provide little further information about King Prithu beyond noting his strict adherence to Brahmanical norms, about how facing an attack by a tribe regarded as untouchable, Prithu had abdicated his throne and threw himself into a tank, leading to the fall of his kingdom.<ref name="Jahan">{{Citation |last=Jahan |first=Shahnaj Husne |title=Communities and Micro-Heritage in Bhitargarh, Bangladesh: A Case Study |date=2019 |work=Archaeology, Cultural Heritage Protection and Community Engagement in South Asia |pages=17–30 |editor-last=Coningham |editor-first=Robin |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6237-8_2 |access-date=2026-03-15 |place=Singapore |publisher=Springer |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-981-13-6237-8_2 |isbn=978-981-13-6237-8 |editor2-last=Lewer |editor2-first=Nick|url-access=subscription }}</ref>}}{{Efn|Archaeological excavations suggest the site to have been active between the seventh and twelfth century CE.<ref name="Jahan" />}} and from the [[Buranji|Kamrupa Buranji]] that explicitly equates Jalpeśvar with Prithu.<ref name=":2" />

===Later Reassessments===

In contrast, [[Nalini Kanta Bhattasali]] rejected such an identification and saw no reason to doubt that Prithu was a rebel based out of Awadh.<ref name=":0" /> He relied on the Tejpur copper-plates—that had been rejected by Barua on grounds of there being too many rulers (four) in the span of forty-five years since Vaidyadeva—to propose that the ruler of Kamrup, contemporary to Bakhtiyar, must have been some successor of Vallabhadeva.<ref name=":0" />{{efn|Bhattasali hypothesized this successor to be '''Viśvasundaradeva''', based on a fatal mis-reading of the Gachtal inscription; he read it as recording Viśvasundaradeva's order to one Chandrakanta to repair the damage to a Śiva temple that had been inflicted by the [[Mleccha|Mlechhas]].<ref name=":0" /> In reality, there is only proper name in the inscription—that of Vishnuvasadhara, the engraver—and the content, as noted before, is totally different.}} Likewise, [[Dineshchandra Sircar]] found no reason to question Juzjani’s chronology on the basis of later local traditions; he agreed that a successor of Vallabhadeva must have repelled Bakhtiyar though, given the absence of any named ruler in the Kanaibarasi inscription and the likely political fragmentation of Kamarupa at the time, it was probable that other regional rulers participated in the resistance.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sircar |first=Dineshchandra |title=The Comprehensive History of Assam |date=August 2007 |publisher=Publication Board Assam |editor-last=Barpujari |editor-first=H.K. |edition=3 |volume=I: Ancient Period (From the Pre-historic Times to theTwelfth Century A.D.) |location=Guwahati |pages=167-170 |language=en |chapter=Political History (Section III: The Bhauma-Naraka or Pāla Dynasty of Brahmapāla)}}</ref>

== Politics of memory ==
With the rise of [[Bharatiya Janata Party]] in the state, Prithu—similar to [[Lachit Borphukan#Contemporary narratives|Lachit Borphukan]]—has been inducted into a Hindu Nationalist framework as an Assamese Hindu icon who defended the territory against perceived Muslim aggression.<ref name=":6">{{Cite news |last=Baruah |first=Sukrita |date=29 August 2025 |title=Looking for Prithu, Assam’s ‘forgotten hero’ who is said to have defeated Bakhtiyar Khilji |url=http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-history/looking-for-prithu-assams-forgotten-hero-who-is-said-to-have-defeated-bakhtiyar-khilji-10217529/ |work=[[Indian Express]]}}</ref> In March 2026, the Government of Assam announced its decision to name a flyover in the state capital after Prithu.<ref name=":6" /> [[Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana]] (ABISY), an affiliate of the [[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]] that promotes reinterpretations of Indian history from a [[Hindutva|Hindu Nationalist perspective]], particularly by instrumentalizing local folklores, has played a significant role in popularizing the legend of Prithu.<ref name=":6" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Berti |first=Daniela |date=2007-12-01 |title=Hindu Nationalists and Local History: from Ideology to Local Lore |url=http://www.fupress.net/index.php/rss/article/view/2462/2297 |journal=Rivista di Studi Sudasiatici |language=EN |volume=2 |issue=1 |issn=1970-9501 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160415160851/http://www.fupress.net/index.php/rss/article/view/2462/2297 |archive-date=2016-04-15}}</ref> Raktim Patar, a historian at [[Jawaharlal Nehru University]], has been associated with these efforts, including organizing national seminars on the subject and authoring monographs dedicated to Prithu.<ref name=":6" />

== Notes ==
{{Notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Raja Prithu}}
[[Category:History of Assam]]
[[Category:Hindu monarchs]]
[[Category:12th-century Indian monarchs]]
[[Category:13th-century Indian monarchs]]
[[Category:1228 deaths]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]
[[Category:Kings of Kamarupa]]

Prithu (ruler of Kamrupa) - Revision history

Jina m. butchart: Starting Some Entry W/ Sources