Prithviraj Chauhan

                                Prithviraj Chauhan 

Biography:

Prithviraj chauhan was a king from the chahamana(chauhan) dynast.Prithviraj chauhan was born to the

chahamana king Someshvara and queen Kapuradevi.Prithviraj chauhan was born in Gujarat.He was born on the 12th day of the jyeshtha month.Prithviraj moved from Gujarat to Ajmer, when his father Someshvara was crowned the chahamana king after the death of Prithviraja II. Someshvara died in 1177CE, when Prithviraj was 11 years old. During his early age as the king, Prithviraj's mother managed the administration.He was very brave and brave going forward.When he was in 11 years he killed a lion.The first military achievement of prithviraj was his suppression of a revolt by his cousin Nagarjun, and recapture of Gudapura:modern Gurgaon.Nagarjun was a son of Prithviraj's uncle, and the struggle for the chahamana throne had led to rivalry between the two branches of the family.Two verses of Kharatara-Gachchha-Pattavali mention the victory of  Prithviraj over the Bhadanakas, while describing a debate between two jain monks. This victory can be dated to sometime before 1182CE. According to Cynthia Talbot, the Bhadanakas were an obscure dynasty who controlled the area around Bayana,the Bhadanaka territory comprised the area around present day Bhiwani,Rewari and Alwar.

                            Battle of Tarain

First battle of tarain and second battle of Tarain:                               

During 1190-1191 CE, Muhammad Ghori invaded the chahamana territory, and captured Tabarhindah(Bathinda).He placed it under the charge of Ziauddin, the Qazi of Tulak, supported by 1200 horsemen. When Prithviraj learned about this, marched towards Tabarhindah with his feudatories, including Govindaraja of Delhi. According to the 16th century Muslim historianFirishta, his force comprised 200,000 horses and 3,000 elephants.Muhammad's original plan was to return to his base after conquering Tabarhindah, but whwn he heard about Prithviraj's march, he decided to put up a fight. He se out with an army, and encountered Prithviraj's forces at Tarain. In the ensuing battle Prithviraj's army decisively defeated Ghauri's,Muhammad of Ghor was injured and forced to retrea.

Prithviraj did not pursue the retreating Ghauri army, not wanting to invade hostile territory or misjudge Ghori's ambition. He only besieged the Ghauri garrison at Tabarhindah, which surrendered after 13 months of siege.

Second battle of Tarain:

Prithviraj seems to have treated the first battle of Tarain as merely a frontier fight. This view is strengthened by the fact that he made little preprations for any future clash with Muhammad of Ghor.According to Prithviraj Raso, during the period preceding his final confrontation with the Ghauri's.

Meanwhile,Muhammad of Ghor returned to Ghazna,and made preparations to avenge his defeat.

According to Tabaqat-i Nasiri, he gathered a well equipped army of 120,000 select Afghan,Tajik and Turkic horsemen over the next few months.He then marched towards the Chahamana kingdom via Multan and Lahore, aided by Vijayraja of Jammu.

At dawn, the four divisions of the Ghauri army attacked the chahamana camp, while Prithviraj was still asleep. After a brief fight, the Ghauri divisions pretended to retreat in accordance with Muhammad's strategy. Prithviraj was thus lured into chasing them, and by the afternoon, the chahamana army was exhausted as a result of this pursuit. At this point, Muhammad led his reserve force and attacked the chahamanas, decisiveley defeating them. Prithviraj's camp lost 100,000 men in this dibacle.Prithviraj himself tried to escape on a horse, but was pursued and caught near the sarasvati fort(modern Sirsa).Muhammad of Ghor captured Ajmer after killing several thousands defenders, enslaved many more, and destroyed the city's temple.

 Death:

Most medieval sources state that Prithviraj was taken to the Chahamana capital Ajmer, where Muhammad planned to reinstate him as a Ghuri's vassal. Sometime later, Prithviraj rebelled against Muhammad, and was killed for treason. This is corroborated by numismatic evidence: some 'horse-and-bullman'-style coins bearing names of both Prithviraj and "Muhammad bin Sam" were issued from the Delhi mint,although another possibility is that the Ghurids initially used Chahamana style coinage to ensure greater acceptance of their own coinage in the former Chahamana territory.After Prithviraj's death, Muhammad installed the Chahamana prince Govindaraja on the throne of Ajmer, which further supports this theory.