The Parihara or Pritihara is scattered over Rajasthan, but do not seem to have any inde pendent chieftainship there. At the confluenee of the Kohari, the Sind, and the Chambal, there is a colony of this race, which has given its name to a commune of twenty-four Yiirages, besides hamlets, situated amidst the ravines of these streams. Mundawur (classically Mundodri) was the capital of the Parihara, and was the chief city of Menvara, which owned the sway of this tribe prior to the invasion and settlement of the Rahtor clan. The Parihara is the least of the Agnicula. They never acted a conspicuous part in the history of Rajasthan.
It is the general opinion that the old warrior Kshatriya race of Hindus, described by Menu as forming the second of the four Hindu castes, had disappeared, and were not the ancestors of the present Rajputs, to whom, however, from their martial habits, the people accord the Kshatriya's position. And it is recognised that the Rajputs were dominant in the N.W. of India from the beginning of the era of Vikramaditya up to the advent of the Muhammadans in the 11th and 12th centuries. Prithi-raja, a prince who was reigning, at Ajmir and Dehli on the second occasion of Shaliab - - Din of Ghor invading India (A.D. 1193), was aided by the greater pait of the Rajput rulers in the attempt to withstand the Muhammadan army, but the Rajputs were over thrown, Prithi-raja taken prisoner, and slain in cold blood, and since then successive invasions from Western Asia have scattered the greater portion: of these ancient warrior tribes over the sandy plains of Central India, and have driven their more northern brethren into the fastnesses of the Himalayan range. Among these Rajputs of the Panjab Hills are the Kutoch tribe ; they are mentioned by the Greek historians of Alexander's expedition, and spoken of by Ferishta as ruling in Kote Kangra in the days of the Kanouj dynasty, and among all the revolutions which time and war have since made in this country.
The Rahtors, whose seat of dominion was at Kanouj, were for a long time the family whose rule was strongest and most widely extended. In tbe llth century, at the time of the conquests of Mahmud of Ghazni, the leading tribes were the Solunkhya of Anhilwara in Gujerat, the Chauhans of Ajmir and the Ralitors of Kanouj ; whilst the Gehlot Clan had established itself in :Mewar or Udaipur (still occupied by the Sesodias, a sept of the Gehlots), and the Kachwaha clan occupied the eastern tracts about Jeypore. The latter
were, however, seriously weakened by the famous feuds between the Solunkliyas and the Chauhans, and between the latter and the Rahtors of Kanouj.
The headship of all the pure Rajputs of the hills, from the Sutlej to the Ravi, has always centred in the house of Kangra, from which many of the local tribes trace their descent. Across the Ravi to the north are other hill Rajputs, who look to Jummoo as their head, from whence they derive their generic name of Jumowal. They are somewhat inferior to those of Kangra, though recognised as the chief of the Rajputs in their own district.
When the Arabs invaded Sind, during the khali fat of Walid (A.D. 711), they overthrew Rajput princes of the Summa and Sumra dynasties who were ruling there, but who from that time recovered their position as the Muhammad power waned ; and until a comparatively recent period, Rajputs were occupying Jhalawan, now one of the provinces of Central Baluchistan.
During the height of the Rajput supremacy, before their overthrow by the Muhammadans of Glior, a Rajput family of the Chalukya tribe reigned at Calian, west of Beder, on the borders of Caruata and Maharashtra. They are traced with certainty by inscriptiona from the end of the 10th to the end of tho 12th century. Those in scriptions show that they possessed territory as far to the south-west as 13anawasi in Sunda, near tho Western Ghats, and in one of them they are styled subjugators of Chola and Gujerat. Mr. (Sir) Walter Elliot has published a largo collec tion of their inscriptions, and lio is of opinion that they possessed the Nvhole of Maharashtra to the Nerbadda. Professor Wilson thinks that they were also superior lords of the west of Telingana, a prince of which (probably their feudatory) defeated the Chola king, and this is probably the conquest alluded to in the inscription. Another branch of the tribe of Chalukya, perhaps connected with those of Calian, ruled over Kalinga, which is the eastern portion of Telingana, extending along the sea from Dravira to Orissa. Their dynasty certainly lasted through the whole of the 12th and 13th centuries, and, perhaps, began two centuries earlier. It was greatly reduced by the Ganapati kings of Andra, and finally subverted by the rajas of Cuttaek.