er Shihab-ud-Din Ghori
in A.D. 1193 the Gaharwar clan, whose kings had conquered it in 1090
and reigned there for a century, migrated to the deserts of Marwar
in Rajputana, where they settled and became known as Rathors. [559]
It has also been generally held that the Rashtrakuta dynasty of
Nasik and Malkhed in the Deccan which reigned from A.D. 753 to 973,
and built the Kailasa temples at Ellora were Rathors, but Mr. Smith
states that there is no evidence of any social connection between the
Rashtrakutas and Rathors. [560] At any rate Siahji, the grandson or
nephew of Jai Chand, the last king of Kanauj, who had been drowned
in the Ganges while attempting to escape, accomplished with about
200 followers--the wreck of his vassalage--the pilgrimage to Dwarka
in Gujarat. He then sought in the sands and deserts of Rajputana
a second line of defence against the advancing wave of Muhammadan
invasion, and planted the standard of the Rathors among the sandhills
of the Luni in 1212. This, however, was not the first settlement of
the Rathors in Rajputana, for an inscription, dated A.D. 997, among
the ruins of the ancient city of Hathundi or Hastikundi, near Bali
in Jodhpur State, tells of five Rathor Rajas who ruled there early
in the tenth century, and this fact shows that the name Rathor is
really much older than the date of the fall of Kanauj. [561]

In 1381 Siahji's tenth successor, Rao Chonda, took Mundore from
a Parihar chief, and made his possession secure by marrying the
latter's daughter. A subsequent chief, Rao Jodha, laid the foundation
of Jodhpur in 1459, and transferred thither the seat of government. The
site of Jodhpur was selected on a peak known as Joda-gir, or the hill
of strife, four miles distant from Mundore on a crest of the range
overlooking the expanse of the desert plains of Marwar. The position
for the new city was chosen at the bidding of a forest ascetic, and was
excellently adapted for defence, but had no good water-supply. [562]
Joda had fourteen sons, of whom the sixth, Bika, was the founder of the
Bikaner state. Raja Sur Singh (1595-1620) was one of Akbar's greatest
generals, and the emperor Jahangir buckled the sword on to his son
Gaj Singh with his own hands. Gaj Singh, the next Raja (1620-1635),
was appointed viceroy of the Deccan, as was his successor, Jaswant
Singh, under Aurangzeb. The Mughal Emperors, Colonel Tod remarks,
were indebted for half their conquests to the Lakh Tulwar Rahtoran,
th