Bappa Rawal

Three respected historians, asked who Bappa Rawal really was, give three different answers. This article covers the legend Rajasthan remembers, and the real, contested evidence behind it.

Bappa Rawal

MedHist0088

THREE CANDIDATES

Historians Disagree on Who

Kalabhoja, Shiladitya, or Khumana, no consensus

TITLE, NOT NAME?

“Bappa” May Be an Honorific

Possibly applied to more than one early Guhila king

LATER LEGEND

A 15th-Century Chronicle

The sage, the cowherd, the temple, all written centuries later

UNVERIFIED

The Arab-Defeat Story

Absent from the actual record of the Arab conquest

Scope note: “Bappa Rawal” names a figure remembered by later tradition. This article separates what inscriptions actually show from what later chronicles later added.

⇩ Download as image

Timeline

• Tradition, per a later chronicle: Bappa Rawal reigns roughly 728 to 753 or 764 CE. This dating isn’t confirmed by any contemporary inscription.
• 959 and 971 CE: the Unawas and Ekling inscriptions name a ruler called Bappa Rawal, within a longer Guhila genealogy.
• 977 CE: the Atpur inscription lists 20 Guhila kings in unbroken succession, but doesn’t include anyone named Bappa Rawal.
• 15th century CE: the Ekalinga Mahatmya, a Mewar chronicle, records the vivid legendary biography now associated with him.
• 1460 CE: the Kumbhalgarh inscription names Bappa Rawal again, within yet another version of the royal genealogy.

A Name Three Historians Disagree About Need to Know

• “Bappa Rawal” appears in some Guhila inscriptions, but is missing from others, including the detailed 977 CE Atpur king-list.
• Historian G.H. Ojha identified Bappa Rawal with Kalabhoja, a genealogically attested Guhila king. His case rests on matching later inscriptions that name the same son, Khumana, to each figure.
• Historians Dasharatha Sharma and D.C. Sircar instead identified him with a different king, Shiladitya, based on a separate inscription’s sequence.
• D.R. Bhandarkar proposed a third option entirely: that Bappa Rawal was actually Khumana himself, Kalabhoja’s son, not his father.
• One clean explanation for these three different answers: “Bappa” may be a title, meaning something like “revered father,” rather than one person’s actual name.

The Guhila Dynasty Bappa Rawal Belongs To Need to Know

• The Guhila dynasty is far older than Bappa Rawal’s traditional dates. Its own genealogy traces back to an earlier founder, Guhadatta, placed as early as the 5th or 6th century CE.
• The dynasty’s earliest capital was Nagda, not Chittor. Chittor only became the Guhila capital much later, around the mid-12th century CE.
• Later tradition credits Bappa Rawal with bringing Chittor under Guhila control, but this claim comes from chronicles, not from the near-contemporary Atpur inscription itself.
• The well-known split into two branches happened generations after Bappa Rawal’s era, under a later ruler. The senior Rawal line stayed at Chittor. The junior Rana line moved to Sisoda.
• The Sisoda line eventually became the historically prominent Sisodiya dynasty of Mewar. See MedHist0054 — Chittorgarh Fort and MedHist0010 — Regional Sultanates and Rajput Kingdoms for that later history.

The Cowherd, the Sage, and the Temple Good to Know

• The vivid biography most people know comes from the Ekalinga Mahatmya, a Mewar chronicle written in the 15th century, centuries after the events it describes.
• By this legend, young Bappa’s male relatives were killed fighting the Bhils. He was raised in obscurity, in a Brahmin household, as a cowherd.
• The sage Harit Rashi initiates him into a Shaivite order and instructs him to found the Eklingji temple, dedicated to Mewar’s patron deity, Eklingnath.
• This story established a lasting doctrine. Mewar’s rulers formally reign only as Diwan, or steward, on behalf of Eklingnath, not as sovereign in their own right.
• Religious historian David Gordon White compares this cowherd-to-king story to similar tales about other rulers elsewhere in South Asia. He treats it as a recurring narrative pattern, not a specific historical memory.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. Bappa Rawal is traditionally associated with which dynasty?

The Guhila dynasty of Mewar

The Chalukya dynasty

The Pratihara dynasty

The Rashtrakuta dynasty

 Loading…

 

The Arab-Invaders Claim: What the Evidence Actually Shows Great to Know

• The real backdrop is well established. Arab forces under Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Sindh around 712 CE, then pushed further into Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Malwa through the 720s and 730s.
• This advance was checked in reality, not just in legend. King Nagabhata I of the Pratihara dynasty is well attested as a major figure in halting it.
• Bappa Rawal’s own specific role in this resistance is far less certain. He isn’t mentioned at all in mainstream historical accounts of the Arab conquest of Sindh.
• Historian R.C. Majumdar goes further, suggesting the arrow points the other way. Bappa Rawal’s later reputation for fighting the Arabs, he argues, is what caused chroniclers to credit him as the Guhila dynasty’s founder. A real founding event causing that reputation, in his view, is less likely.
• Not every historian is this sceptical. R.V. Somani treats Bappa Rawal’s role in an anti-Arab coalition with Nagabhata I as plausible. He still calls it a proposal, though, not a proven fact backed by contemporary inscriptions.