Jayachandra

Jayachandra was a son of the Gahadavala king Vijayachandra. According to a Kamauli inscription, he was crowned king on 21 June 1170 CE.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=102}} Jayachandra inherited his grandfather Govindachandra's royal titles:{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=102}} Ashva-pati Nara-pati Gaja-pati Rajatrayadhipati ("leader of three forces: the cavalry, the infantry and the elephant corps"{{sfn|D. C. Sircar|1966|p=35}}) and Vividha-vidya-vichara-vachaspati ("patron of different branches of learning").{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=87}}

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Jayachandra's inscriptions praise him using the conventional grandiloquent terms, but do not mention any concrete achievement of the king. The records of his neighbouring Hindu kings (Paramara, Chahamana, Chandela and Kalachuri) do not mention any conflict with him either.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=103}}

{{Main|Sena-Gahadavala Conflicts}}

The Sena king Lakshmana Sena's one of the most significant achievement was his success against the Gahadavalas. He invaded the Gahadavala territories and drove away Jayachandra from Magadha (present-day Bihar).{{Cite book |last=Sen |first=Sailendra Nath |url=https://books.google.com/books/about/Ancient_Indian_History_and_Civilization.html?id=Wk4_ICH_g1EC#v=onepage&q=Lakshmana%20Sena%20kalinga%20magadha%20kamrupa&f=false |title=Ancient Indian History and Civilization |publisher=New Age International |year=1999 |isbn=9788122411980 |pages=289 |language=English |format=}}{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=105}}

The Muslim Ghurids invaded Jayachandra's kingdom in the 1193 CE.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=105}} The Muslim accounts describe Jayachandra as the Rāi of Banaras (King of Banaras).{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=109}} According to Ibn Asir's Kamil ut-Tawarikh, Jayachandra was "the greatest king of India and possessed the largest territory",{{sfn|Rama Shankar Tripathi|1989|p=323}} and his army had a million soldiers and 700 elephants.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=110}}

The Hindu accounts (such as Prithviraj Raso and Vidyapati's Purusha-Pariksha) claim that Jayachandra defeated the Ghurids multiple times. The contemporary Muslim accounts, on the other hand, mention only two battles: one relatively minor engagement and the Battle of Chandwar, in which Jayachandra was killed.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=107}}

The Ghurid ruler Muhammad of Ghor had defeated the Chahamana king Prithviraja III in 1192 CE. According to Hasan Nizami's 13th century text Taj-ul-Maasir, he decided to attack the Gahadavala kingdom after taking control of Ajmer, Delhi and Kol. He dispatched a 50,000-strong army commanded by Qutb ud-Din Aibak. Nizami states that this army defeated "the army of the enemies of the Religion" (Islam). It appears that the defeated army was not Jayachandra's main army, but only a smaller body of his frontier guards.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|pp=110-111}}

Jayachandra then himself led a larger army against Muhammad of Ghor who marched from Ghazni with an army of 50,000 cavalry in 1194 CE.{{Cite book|author=Mohammad Habib|editor=K. A. Nizami|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iQ1uAAAAMAAJ |title=Politics and Society During the Early Medieval Period: Collected Works of Professor Mohammad Habib |date=1981 |publisher=People's Publishing House|page=116|quote=In the winter of A.D. 1194-1195 Shihabuddin once more marched into Hindustan and invaded the doab. Rai Jaichand moved forward to met him....then description of Chandwar struggle. Shihabuddin captured the treasure fort of Asni and then proceeded to Benaras, 'where he converted about thousand idol-temples into house for the Musalmans|language=en}}

{{cite book|author=Iqtidar Alam Khan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=URluAAAAMAAJ |title=Historical Dictionary of Medieval India |date=2008|publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-5503-8|page=80|quote=Jaichandra was defeated and killed by Muhammad Ghauri at Chandawar (40 km east of Agra) in 1193}}{{cite book|author=Satish Chandra|author-link=Satish Chandra (historian)|title=Medieval India:800-1700|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qHnHHwAACAAJ|year=2007|publisher=Orient Longman|isbn=978-81-250-3226-7|page=71|quote=In 1194, Muizzuddin returned to India. He crossed the Jamuna with 50,000 cavalry and moved towards Kanauj. A hotly contested battle between Muizzuddin and Jaichandra was fought at Chandawar near Kanauj. We are told that Jaichandra had almost carried the day when he was killed by an arrow, and his army was totally defeated. Muizzuddin now moved on to Banaras which was ravaged, a large number of temples there being destroyed|language=en}} According to the 16th century historian Firishta, Jayachandra was seated on an elephant when Qutb al-Din killed him with an arrow. The Ghurids captured 300 elephants alive, and plundered the Gahadavala treasury at the Asni fort.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|pp=111-112}} The identification of Asni is not certain, but most historians believe it to be the present-day Asni village in Fatehpur district.{{sfn|D. P. Dubey|2008|p=231}} Afterwards, the Ghurids ransacked the city of Kashi (Varanasi) and destroyed several temples there. According to Hasan Nizami, "nearly 1000 temples were destroyed and mosques were raised on their foundations". A number of local feudatory chiefs came forward to offer their allegiance to the Ghurids.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|pp=111-112}}

Jayachandra's son Harishchandra succeeded him on the Gahadavala throne. According to one theory, he was a Ghurid vassal. However, in an 1197 CE Kotwa inscription, he assumes the titles of a sovereign.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|pp=113-114}}

Jayachandra is a prominent character in the Braj language text Prithviraj Raso, many of whose claims at least regarding Jayachandra are unsubstantiated, historically inaccurate or clearly contradicted by evidence. According to the text, Jayachandra ("Jaichand") was a cousin of the Chahamana king Prithviraja III ("Prithviraj Chauhan"). Their mothers were sisters born to the Tomara king of Delhi. This claim is directly contradicted by the more reliable contemporary text Prithviraja Vijaya, according to which Prithviraj's mother had nothing to do with the Tomaras.{{sfn|R. C. Majumdar|1977|p=339}}

The text states that Jaichand's wife was a daughter of king Mukunda-deva, the Somavanshi king of Kataka. Jaichand's father Vijayachandra had defeated Mukunda-deva, who concluded a peace treaty by marrying his daughter to prince Jaichand. Samyukta was the issue of this marriage. This narrative is historically inaccurate: the Somavanshi dynasty did not have any king named Mukunda-deva. Moreover, the Somavanshis had already been displaced by the Gangas before Vijayachandra's ascension.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=92}}

The text also talks of a conflict between Jaichand and Prithviraj. Neither Chahamana nor Gahadavala inscriptions mention any such conflict. The text claims that Jaichand assisted the Chandela king Paramardi in a battle against Prithviraj. The Chandelas were defeated in this battle. The inscriptional evidence confirms that Prithviraj defeated Paramardi, but there is no evidence for a Gahadavala-Chandela alliance. That said, it is known that Paramardi's grandfather Madanavarman had friendly relations with the Gahadavalas. It is also possible that Gahadavalas may have supported the Chandelas, because the Chahamanas were a common rival of these two kingdoms.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=103}} This hypothesis notwithstanding, there is no evidence to suggest that Jayachandra and Prithviraja were rivals.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=107}}

Prithviraj Raso further claims that Jaichand launched a digvijaya campaign (conquest in all directions). At the end of this campaign, he conducted a rajasuya ceremony to proclaim his supremacy.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=106}} However, none of the Gahadavala inscriptions mention such a ceremony by Jaichand. The contemporary literary work Rambha-Manjari, which presents Jaichand as a hero, does not mention this campaign either.{{sfn|Swami Parmeshwaranand|2000|p=541}}

According to the text, Jaichand also conducted a svayamvara (husband selection) ceremony for his daughter Samyukta. He did not invite Prithviraj to this ceremony, but Samyukta had fallen in love with Prithviraj, and decided to select him as her husband. Prithviraj came to the ceremony and eloped with the princess after a fight with Jaichand's men. This anecdote is not supported by any historical evidence either.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=106-107}}

It is possible that Jaichand and Prithviraj were political rivals, as indicated by their non-cooperation against the Ghurid invaders.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=107}} But the Prithviraj Raso claim that Jaichand not only refused to help Prithviraj against the Ghurids, but also formed an alliance with the invading Ghurid king Muhammad of Ghor.{{sfn|R. C. Majumdar|1977|p=317|ps=:"There is, however, nothing to support the current story that Jayachandra invited the Muslim king to invade India to weak his vengeance against Prithviraja."}} Although historians dispute the account in Prithviraj Raso, the name "Jaichand" became synonymous with the word "traitor" in Hindu folklore. {{sfn|Dhirendra K Jha|Krishna Jha|2012|p=234}}

Several inscriptions from Jayachandra's reign have been discovered, most of them in and around Varanasi.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=103}} One of the inscriptions has been discovered at Bodh Gaya in present-day Bihar.{{sfn|Sukumar Dutt|1988|p=209}}

The inscriptions from Jayachandra's reign include the following:{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|pp=255-260}}

Jayachandra's court poet Bhatta Kedar wrote a eulogy titled Jaichand Prakash on his life, but the work is now lost. Another lost eulogy on his life is the poet Madhukar's Jaya-Mayank-Jasha-Chandrika ({{circa|1183}}).{{sfn|Sujit Mukherjee|1998|p=142}}

According to the 1167 CE Kamauli inscription, as a prince, Jayachandra was initiated as a worshipper of Krishna by the Vaishnavite guru Praharaja-Sharman.{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=197}} Nevertheless, after ascending the throne, Jayachandra assumed the dynasty's traditional title Parama-Maheshvara ("devotee of Shiva"). His Kamauli grant inscription states that he made a village grant and performed tulapurusha ceremony in the presence of the god Kṛittivāsa (an epithet of Shiva).{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=198}}{{sfn|V. B. Mishra|1973|p=70}}

An inscription discovered at Bodh Gaya suggests that Jayachandra also showed interest in Buddhism. This inscription begins with an invocation to Gautam Buddha, the Bodhisattavas, and one Shrimitra (Śrimītra). Shrimitra is named as a perceptor (diksha-guru) of Kashisha Jayachchandra, identified with the king Jayachandra. The inscription records the construction of a guha (cave monastery) at Jayapura.{{sfn|Sukumar Dutt|1988|p=209}}{{sfn|Roma Niyogi|1959|p=198}}

• La Malinche, Yanakuna, Benedict Arnold, Vidkun Quisling, similar terms associated with "traitors" in popular culture.

{{reflist|30em}}

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{{Gahadavala dynasty}}

Category:Gahadavala kings

Category:12th-century Indian monarchs

Category:1194 deaths

Category:Monarchs killed in action