Who are Mohan Mohyals?

Mohan Mohyals

Mohans are the descendants of Rishi Kashyap from whom they get their Kashyap gotra.He was the fabled founder of the  Kashmir region. A long line of the Rishis descendants was devoted to the worship of snakes and enjoyed supremacy in Kashmir. The tribal Nagas of the north east and the north Indian brahmin castes of Nag, Nagar, Nagpal etc are said to be their offsprings.

After the conclusion of the Mahabharata war,Ashvasthama went into exile and one of his associates was named Mohan.Some Mohyal historians consider him to be the initiator of the Mohan sect.

Kashmir was the homeland of the Mohans, so it could be possible that its original rulers were the ancestors of these people. According to the accounts left by the Chinese traveller Hieun Tsang, there was a long reign of brahmin kings over Kashmir in the ancient times.

The Mohans ruled this land for 253 years, from 602 AD to855 AD.

It started with Durlabh Drohin who was a stable keeper in the court of Bala Ditya, the king of Kashmir. The king married him to his only daughter and made him hier to his throne, as he had no son. When Bala Ditya died in 602 AD, Durlab Drohin succeeded him. Shortly after his coronation he celebrated his second marriage, this time with the daughter of Raja Chach, the Chhibber ruler of Sind. From this marriage he got a son, Virambhak, whom he proclaimed as hier. Virambhak’s third son Lalita Aditya ascended to the throne in 699 AD and ruled for 36 eventful years. He extended his dominion upto Konkan in the south after conquering Kanauj, Malwa and Gujarat. He was an ambitious man and he founded a new city called Lalitapur where he built a majestic sun temple.

After the death of Lalita Aditya, there was chaos and half a dozen rulers changed hands in a period of ten years, till a great monarch named Jeaped rose on the scene. He ruled with great distinction for 43 years from 746 Adto 789 AD. He brought fame and glory to to his reign and was credited with extensive conquests of new territories including Nepal.

With the demise of king Jeaped, the glory and grandeur of the Mohan’s dynastic rule in Kashmir waned and whittled down. His son and half a dozen incumbents who followed him squandered away their of the family kingdom and led to its distintergration. The rule of the Mohans was finally wraped up in 855 AD.

The early history of the Mohan clan was documented in the form of a book called Pothi Rai Seegadh. A later version appeared at the turn of the century under the title of Jang Nama Mohan.

Russel Stracey’s history of the Mohans starts from the time of their migration to the holy city of Mathura. Curiously, Mathura at different times became the camping ground of almost castes of Mohyals. Being the divine fortress of peace, it offered ready shelter to those who were driven to its portals in distress or struck by calamity, as was often the case with the Mohyals. They became luckless fugitives, time and again, due to political turmoil or following attacks. Morover as militant Brahmins, they were called upon to defend the holy city against the barbarians and the iconclasts.

In the fourteenth century Bhagwan Dass made Mathura his home. He had three sonsnamed Gokul, Mathura Dass and Hari Kishan. Hari Kishan later on shifted to Benaras. His son Abnashi Ram went on a pilgramage of the holy Ganga and Yamuna and reached as far as Delhi. At Delhi he won the favour of Amir Timur who appointed him as his Dewan. The two sons of another Mohan dignitary Maya Dass were made commanders of the royal army.

When Timur departed from Delhi after defeating Mahmud Tughlaq and ravaging Delhi,he appointed Sultan Mohammed Khan as the surrogate ruler. It was during his reign that Dewan Hira Nand and Dewan Rai Mohan rebuilt the town of Dhankote on the bank of the river Sind.

Dhankote on Sind was the ancient home of the Mohans. It suffered an eclipse when Raja Sukhpal Mohan of Peshawar converted to Islam during the raid of Mahmud Ghazni on India. Mahmud’s son Sultan Masood ousted the Mohans after capturing Dhankote They lived in the hills in unsettled conditions under the shelter of the Gakhars and later shifted to the plains.

MAMDOT
Rai Thakur was a famous Mohan during the period of Ala-ud-din Khilji. His son Jaswant Rao adopted the Muslim faith in 1306 and became a favourite of the ruler. He was able to arrange grant of a big jagir in Mamdot for the five sons of his deceased brother. Mamdot became a prestigious Dheri of the Mohans and a nostalgic symbol of the entire clan.

Babar, the first Mughal king, appointed an eminent Mohan Harjas Rai as his Dewan. This was a period of glory of the Mohan family as several members of clan shot into limelight and were conferred with titles and jagirs. Mamdot in district Ferozepur remained the bastion of their power.

In a short time Mamdot became such a stronghold of the Mohans that Humayun sent a large force to curb their power. The Mohans proved too formidable and he had to employ a large army. The Mohans fought from their family fort in Mamdot but were outnumbered. In a savage war they were totally wiped out. The only ones to survive were an aged family patriarch Baba Sahib and his son Sobha Ram Thakur. Sobha Ram was taken prisoner and deported to Delhi where he was posted as manager to the royal household. He distinguished himself in his job and was promoted to a higher rank in the imperial court. At this very time the Datts living in Veeram were in great trouble as they were being persecuted by the Jats who had confiscated their lands. The aggrieved Datts approached Baba Sahib for help. He urged his son

Sobha Ram to take necessary action. Sobha Ram headed a big force and punished the Jats. He recovered all the captured land of the Datts from them. At this turn of events, out of gratitude a leading Datt offered his daughter’s hand in marriage. Sobha Ram accepted but with the condition that the marriage would be celebrated at their ancestral town of Mamdot. Eventually he arranged the marriage of that girl with Baba Sahib, as he was anxious to save his clan from extinction. Two sons begotten from this marriage are regarded by some as the forerunners of the subsequent generations of Mohans. Baba Sahib bequeathed to his descendants to make a suitable donation on the occasion of marriage or other celebration, to perpetuate the memory of his son. His wishes are carried out to this day and Mohan families offer a lota and some eatables on all festive occasions.

The Mohans of Pind Dadan Khan are regarded as the direct descendants of Baba Sahib while those of other places as having descended from the relatives of those who survived the mayhem at Mamdot. The Mohans were decimated to such an extent in the holocast at Mamdot that they have still not recovered thier old strength and constitute only 5% of the total population of the community.

The following gruesome episode is described in the Pothi of Seegadh Rai, the chronicle of the Mohans.

When Mohammed Shah was the king of Delhi (1719—1748 AD) Sadhu Ram was his Dewan. He had a very handsome grandson named Jai Ram. The king forced him to marry his daughter after converting him to Islam. This step was greatly resented by the Mohans and they challenged the king to a war. In the battle the Mohans defeated the Mughal army, said to be two lakh strong, and imprisoned their commander. This incited the ire of the king and so to avenge the humiliation he ordered a big army to attack Mamdot. The Mohans fought a pitched battle under the command of their popular leaders Govind Ram and Mathura Dass. Their valour in this war became a part of the folklore and was sung by the family bards for generations. Being woefully outnumbered, the Mohans were totally annihilated and only a few elderly people like Dewan Sadhu Ram survived the disaster.All the women plunged to death in yhe raging pyres. A few men who could escape from the inferno fled to other places. According to the Seegadh Pothi 2088 Mohan men and women perished in this carnage. After this  grim tragedy, the Mohans led a bereaved and haunted existence for a long time.

Jai Ram after his conversion to Islam was known as Thakur Sahib alais Khizer. On learning of the blood shed at Mamdot he was greatly distressed at the thought of his family being obliterated. As he himself had been ostracised from Hinduism, he met his grandfather Sadhu Ram in Lahore and induced him to marry again for the preservation of the clan.  Thus the Mohan clan was saved from extinction due to the initiative and exertions of Jai Ram.  To honour the memory of this saviour, Dewan Sadhu Ram enjoined on his offsprings to offer an earthern carafe at the time of all marriages and this tradition is kept alive by the Mohans to this day.

In modern times, Mehta, Balmukund, Mohan (1871-1969) was a skion of the historical Mohan family of Mamdot.