BOOKS AND ARTICLES
Mohyals had a glorious past. The knowledge of being a part of that heritage revitalizes the self-esteem of a Mohyal and provides a shield against the restlessness and rootlessness of modernity. Mohyal History is an elixir for the young.
The books written recently, during the current decade of the twenty first century, on Mohyal History, mainly cover the events of the rule by Mohyal sovereigns over the border regions of India during the Early Medieval Period (centuries preceding the rise of the Ghaznavids). This narration is completely missing from the mainstream history of India and text books. This account of successful resistance to the march of Islam by Hindu India had been kept under the wraps, by foreign rulers, as if these centuries (c. 650-1000 CE) did not exist in the North-West. The history of rule by ancestors of Mohyals was embedded in this “suppressed” chapter of the History of India and hence outside the radar of students and researchers. These NEW WAVE books on Mohyal History being published during the recent years, highlight that untold story.
AFGHANISTAN REVISITED by R. T. Mohan, additionally, untangles another convoluted discussion about ‘Origin of Caste in Hindu Society.’ An oft repeated cliché is that ‘caste is as old as the Hindu Religion.’ There is a catch in this. The four-fold classification of Hindus into four Varnas – Brahamanas, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras – is as old as the Rig Veda and the Bhagvadgita. But thousands of castes that we see today within every Varna, came into being, as a societal measure, after the advent of Islam in India. This lesser known fact is very significant to understand how India enjoyed complete harmony, becoming the leading exporter of its fine manufactures in the world trade for millennia and collecting unquantifiable huge stock of gold in return. [Sone ki chidiya: as the invaders found her.] The strong loyalty to small caste-groups (Biradri) and other evils like untouchability were the result of caste proliferation during the Medieval Period.
This ‘authenticated’ corpus of knowledge about our glorious past has excited the interest of our Mohyal intellectuals and, with further research, they are publishing more books extending the frontiers of our knowledge. These, in turn, are likely to create further stimulation to look into other related topics. For example, in the book Echoes Among Ruins by Vinay Mehta, Jaya Singh, the eldest son of Dahar the king of Sindh, emerges as the hero of that clash with the Arabs. One finds that during his father’s reign Jaya Singh acted as a valiant commander obeying his sovereign; after the martyrdom of King Dahar during the battle, Jaya Singh coordinated the resistance by his brothers who were holding other forts; when all was over, he collected his brothers with their families at one place (to fight on another day) and they came to jointly administer Punjab, which had not been conquered by the Arabs; later, finding the Arabs shaky, he went back with one brother and occupied his earlier fiefdom of Brahmanabad. This and other similar exciting stories remain to be researched and told by our intellectuals and the young.
The Punjab kingdom of Trilochanapal and Bhimapal in Punjab was annihilated in 1026 CE and gradually India was enslaved by Muslim arms. The history of continued martyrdoms by Mohyals, during long resistance by India to the foreign rule, needs to be narrated in a book, and not as fragmentary events. Small books are also needed in Hindi for those who have preference for that language. These can be compiled from the available corpus of knowledge available, without much scholarly research.
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In this Section we are introducing the readers to the full collection of books written about Mohyal History so far, with a short commentary on each, to help them make their choice for purchase/study. These books have been listed in the following two Parts:
PART – I : BOOKS ON MOHYAL HISTORY PUBLISHED DURING THIS DECADE.
PART – II : BOOKS ON MOHYAL HISTORY PUBLISHED DURING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.
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