Description of Jats by James Tod (Contd)
[p.130]: boarded by the enemy, expert in this kind of warfare. In each boat he placed twenty archers, and some with fire-balls of naphtha to burn the Jat fleet. The monarch having determined on their extirpation, awaited the result at Multan. The Jats sent their wives, children, and effects to Sind Sagar,[1] and launched four thousand, or, as others say, eight thousand boats well armed to meet the Ghaznians. A terrible conflict ensued, but the projecting spikes sunk the Jat boats while others were set on fire. Few escaped from this scene of terror ; and those who did, met with the more severe fate of captivity." [2]
Many doubtless did escape ; and it is most probable that the Jat communities, on whose overthrow the State of Bikaner was founded, were remnants of this very warfare.
Not long after this event the original empire of the Getae was overturned, when many fugitives found a refuge in India. In 1360 Togultash Timur was the great Khan of the Getae nation ; idolaters even to this period. He had conquered Khorasan, invaded Transoxiana (whose prince fled, but whose nephew. Amir Timur, averted its subjugation), gained the friendship of Togultash, and commanded a hundred thousand Getae warriors. In 1369, when the Getic Khan died, such was the ascendancy obtained by Timur over his subjects, that the Kuriltai, or general assembly, transferred the title of Grand Khan from the Getic to the Chagatai Timur. In 1370 he married a Getic princess, and added Khokhand and Samarkand to his patrimony, Transoxiana. Rebellions and massacres almost depopulated this nursery of mankind, ere the Getae abandoned their independence ; nor was it till 1388, after six invasions, in which he burnt their towns, brought away their wealth, and almost annihilated the nation, that he felt himself secure.[3]
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1 Translated by Dow, ' an island.' Sind Sagar is one of the Duabas of the Panjab. I have compared Dow's translation of the earlier portion of the history of Ferishta with the original, and it is infinitely more faithful than the world gives him credit for. His errors are most considerable in numerals and in weights and measures ; and it is owing to this that he has made the captured wealth of India appear so incredible.
2 Ferishta vol. i. [The translation in the text is an abstract of that of Dow (i. 72). That of Briggs (i. 81 f.) is more accurate. In neither version is there any mention of the Sind Sagar. Rose (Glossary, ii. 359) discredits the account of this naval engagement, and expresses a doubt whether the Jats at this period occupied Jud or the Salt Ranges.]
3 [By the ' Getae ' of the text the author apparently means Mongols.]
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[p.131]:
In his expedition into India, having overrun great part of Europe, " taken Moscow, and slain the soldiers of the barbarous Urus," he encountered his old foes " the Getae, who inhabited the plains of Tohim, where he put two thousand to the sword, pursuing them into the desert and slaughtering many more near the Ghaggar." [1]
Still the Jat maintained himself in the Panjab, and the most powerful and independent prince of India at this day is the Jat prince of Lahore, holding dominion over the identical regions where the Yueh-chi colonized in the fifth century, and where the Yadus, driven from Ghazni, established themselves on the ruins of the Taks. The Jat cavalier retains a portion of his Scythic manners, and preserves the use of the chakra or discus, the weapon of the Yadu Krishna in the remote age of the Bharat.
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1 Abulghazi vol. ii. chap. 16. After his battle with Sultan Mahmud of Delhi, Timur gave orders, to use the word of his historian, " for the slaughter of a hundred thousand infidel slaves. The great mosque was fired, and the souls of the infidels were sent to the abyss of hell. Towers were erected of their heads, and their bodies were thrown as food to the beasts and birds of prey. At Mairta the infidel Guebres were flayed alive." This was by order of Tamerlane, to whom the dramatic historians of Europe assign every great and good quality !
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