Bardic tales and genealogical records suggest that the Gohil Suryavanshi Rajput dynasty ruled over Saurashtra (Kathiawar) in present day Gujarat, India, in ancient times. Alexander Kinloch Forbes wrote in his Ras-Mala, “The Gohil Rajputs of the solar race to which belonged Ramchandra (Lord Ram) and the Vallabhi dynasty, migrated to Mewar after the destruction of Vallabhi (in Kathiawar)”.
They were also known as Guhilputra, the name being derived from ‘guhu’, which means cave. The founder of the Gohil clan, Muhideosur Gohadit (Guhil) was born in a cave in 542 AD after the fall of Vallabhi, and so the dynasty came to be known as Gohil. He became chief of a hilly tract of forests near modern Idar in north Gujarat in 556 AD, and held sway till he died around 603 AD, leaving behind a dynasty that, in the centuries to come, gave rise to kingdoms in Rajputana, Saurashtra and Gujarat, Central India and the Deccan, and from which also emanated the Ranas of Nepal.
Guhil’s descendant Kalbhoj captured Chittor Fort and founded the kingdom of Mewar in 734 AD. He came to be known as Bappa Rawal.
Salivahan, son of Narvahan, King of Mewar, and 11th in descent to Bappa Rawal, migrated to Marwar with part of the Gohil clan in 973 AD, leaving behind his son Shaktikumar with the rest of the kinsmen in Mewar.
The Gohil clan under Salivahan settled at Juna Khergarh, which they made their capital on the Luni River (present-day Bhalotra near Jodhpur) in Marwar. There is still a village there called ‘Gohilon ki Dhani’. For over two-and-a-half centuries, the Gohil dynasty thus ruled over Mewar as well as Marwar, modern-day Udaipur and Jodhpur.
The Gohils of Mewar, descendants of Shaktikumar, were attacked by Ala-ud-din Khilji’s army in 1303 in which Rana Rattan Singh and all the men were killed in battle, and the women led by Rani Padmavati committed jauhar. Thereafter Hamir Singh Gohil, a descendant 13 generations apart, who lived in Mount Sisoda, was installed at Chittor. The Gohil clan of Mewar thus assumed the name Sisodia.
The Gohil dynasty ruled Marwar for 20 generations till the mid-13th century. In 1211, the Rathores who had to leave Kannauj (in modern Uttar Pradesh) following the invasions of Muhammad Ghori and the establishment of the Slave dynasty in Delhi, founded the kingdom of Marwar, which later came to be known as Jodhpur. This led to clashes between the Gohil and Rathore clans.
When the skirmishes with the Rathores grew too fierce, leading to the killing of the respective chiefs Maheshdasji Gohil and Siyaji Rathore, the Gohil clan under Sejakji marched back to Saurashtra after over five hundred years to the court of the Chalukyas, with their capital at Anahilapataka (modern Patan) in present-day Gujarat, earlier ruled by the great Sidhraj Singh (Jayasimha Siddharaja). They were granted a jagir in what is modern Gohilwar, thus becoming governors of the Chalukyas (also called Solanki).
THE MIGHTY GOHILS
The ‘Ruling Princes and Chiefs of India’ published by The Times of India in 1930 states that: “No single portion of the vast and vulnerable land of Ind is wrapt deeper in the fascinating glamour of immemorial legend, tradition and romance than is Kathiawar, the ancient territory of the Vallabhi kings. To Kathiawar journeyed the mighty Gohils, that historic Rajput tribe whose very name signifies ‘the strength of the earth’, centuries before Norman William fought Saxon Harold at Senlac. Originally, as it would seem, vassals of the Vallabhi kings, the Gohils, by degrees conquered the greater portion of Kathiawar, until they permanently rooted themselves in the soil of Saurashtra. They were fighters ever, these men – warriors to the bone and marrow. Sejakji – Ranoji – Mokhdaji – what memories of raid and foray, of pitched battle, of fierce siege do these names not recall! It was Mokhdaji, it may be remembered, who took Gogha from its Mohamedan defenders and made of Perim a royal capital. Mighty in physical stature as he was in deeds of derring do, he died fighting against Muhammad Tughlaq on Gogha soil, leaving behind him a name never to be forgotten in the annals of Saurashtra.”
To the Gohils were born valiant warriors like Maharana Sanga (Sangram Singh) and Maharana Pratap, the rulers of Mewar, who by then had assumed the name Sisodia, and the legendary Maratha King Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, all of whom refused to bow to the might of the Mughals. The kingdoms that stemmed from the Sisodias of Mewar were Dungarpur, Banswara, Pratapgarh and Shahpura in Rajasthan, and Barwani in Madhya Pradesh. A branch of the Sisodias also migrated north and became the powerful Rana prime ministers of Nepal. In Maharashtra the Gohils assumed the name Bhonsle and founded kingdoms like Kolhapur, Satara, Nagpur, and Sawantwadi. In the south they founded the kingdom of Thanjavur.
Back in Saurashtra, Sejakji (Sahajigji) was twenty-third in descent to Salivahan. He was chief of the Gohil clan from 1240, governor, commanding officer of King Tribhuvanapala’s army and right-hand man of the Solankis, a branch of the Chalukyas, with their capital at Anahilapataka (modern Patan) in present-day Gujarat. Sejakji befriended Rah (Rao) Mahipal, King of Saurashtra, whose capital was Junagadh, and married his daughter Valumkunverba (Amarkunvari) to Khengar (Kawat), the heir apparent (Jayamal) of Saurashtra. Sejakji received Shahpur along with 24 villages in jagir, in the midst of which he founded a capital in 1250, naming it Sejakpur after himself. He added 40 villages by force of arms, before he died in 1254.
Somraj succeded as chief after the death of Sejakji, whose other two sons Shahji and Sarangji received jagirs in Mandvi and Arthilla, which later became the kingdoms of Palitana and Lathi. Part of folklore is the stirring tale of Hamirji Gohil, a 16-year-old and newly-married chieftain of Lathi, who sacrificed his life in 1401 defending the Somnath temple from the attack of Sultan Muzaffar Shah I of Ahmedabad. Hamirji Gohil’s cenotaph still stands at the entrance to the temple.
Mulraj, brother of Somraj, was governor of Sorath. He died in 1290, by when had also carved out an independent principality Ghogha, with capital at Piram (or Pirambet), an island in the Gulf of Cambay, near present-day Bhavnagar.
Ranoji became Gohil chief in 1290. He established a new Gohil capital at Ranpur but was expelled from there and slain by Muslim invaders in 1309.
Mokhdaji succeeded his father Ranoji and conquered Umrala from the Kolis, and wrested back Piram (Ghogha) from the Muslims. He succumbed to sword wounds inflicted in battle by the army of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq in 1347.
Mokhdaji married (i) Sarvaiya princess of Hathasani in Kathiawar. Their son Dungarsinhji succeeded as chief, and later his descendant Bhavsinhji founded the capital city of Bhavnagar in 1723, (ii) Parmar princess, daughter of Chokrana, ruler of Rajpipla, with capital in the western Satpuras, which was earlier part of the imperial kingdom of Ujjain. The son of Mokhdaji Gohil and the Parmar princess – Samarsinhji – succeeded to the gadi of Rajpipla on the death of his maternal grandfather Chokrana, who had no male issue. Samarsinhji then assumed the name Arjunsinhji.
Arjunsinhji became the first Gohil Rajput ruler of the principality of Rajpipla around 1340. The Gohil clan of Rajpipla continued to worship the deity of the Parmars, Shri Harsiddhi Mataji.
After the attack on Chittor by Akbar in 1559, Maharana Udai Singh took refuge in the Gohil kingdom of Rajpipla, up in the capital Dev Chhatra (Abode of the Gods), in the western Satpuras and overlooking the Narmada. After a stay of about six months, Maharana Udai Singh joined his son Pratap, and built a new Sisodia capital in a secure area deep in the Aravalli hills, which he named Udaipur.
After defeating Aurangzeb’s army in 1705, and wresting back the territory that had been seized by Akbar, Maharana Verisaji I of Rajpipla brought an idol of Harsiddhi Mataji from Ujjain, where Her original temple stands next to the Mahakaleshwar temple. He built a temple of Harsiddhi Mataji in Rajpipla. A statue of Maharana Verisalji I was installed in the precincts of Harsiddhi Mataji temple in the year 2021.
The Gohil dynasty retained its hold on the hill tracts of the Satpuras, and the plains that lay largely between the rivers Narmada and Tapti, with the help of the native Bhil tribe through diplomacy, grit and courage. Whenever the opportunity arose, the rulers allied themselves with other Hindu chiefs to expand their territory. Through all the turbulent years, the Gohil kingdom of Rajpipla survived despite being hemmed in by such powerful Muslim kingdoms as Gujarat (Ahmedabad), Malwa and Khandesh, and the Bahamani Kingdom. They had to contend with the Mughals for about 120 years, and later the Gaekwars.
The Gohil dynasty ruled over the 4,000 square kilometres kingdom of Rajpipla for six centuries. The last ruler was Maharaja Vijaysinhji who merged Rajpipla State with the Indian Union in 1948.
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