6_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History

270 SIX GLORIOUS EPOCHS OF INDIAN HISTORK
translations or transliterations of stray incoherent remarks
and disconnected and perverted accounts of the Muslim or
the English writers. Independent' Rasos' seem to have been
composed on valiant Rajput Ranas, proud of their religion
(Hamir Raso, Chhatrasal Raso, etc.). The 'Rasos' are not
pure, unadulterated histories ! But the forceful and vivid
descriptions of the various events, their high fervour and the
fact of their authors' participation, to a lesser or greater
•degree, in those particular historical events make those grand
incidents live, as it were, before the imagination of the
reader, as the above-mentioned sketchy outlines of chrono­
logical accounts can never do. 'Prithviraj Raso' by the
famous Chand Bhat, who M'as in the pay of Prithviraj, bears
•out the above remark by its epic serenity, calm dignity and
moving pathos in its descriptions of the Hindus of the time
and of its account of the first Muslim raids from the north-
•west^o.
THE STORY OF THE FIRE RACE ( ^T^^^ )
677. This 'Prithviraj Raso' gives the famous anecdote of
the sif'H-^ the fire-race in connection with the origin of the
Rajput dynasties. According to it when the plague of the
non-Hindu invaders grew enormously, Saint Vasishta perfor­
med a grand sacrifice on Mount Abu from the leaping flames
•of which appeared four splendid warriors in order to protect
the Vedic Hindu religion. These were the founders of the
four celebrated Rajput dynasties : the Quhilots of Chittod,
the Pratihars of Kanouj, the Chouhans of Sambar and the
Parmars of Dhar. The essence of this popular anecdote seems
to us quite consistent with history. For after the Hindus
vanquished the Huns utterly and when the latter began to
merge wholesale in the Hindu society, the saints of those
•days must necessarily have performed some gigantic sacrifice
of purification and conversion for atleast some hundreds of
them—a memorable incident which perhaps finds this poetic
•expression in Chand Bhat's 'Prithviraj Raso' in the finest
tradition of the Puranik writers.