Note 39 — Chapter XII · THE MIHIRAS OR MERS. a.d. 470–900.

Jhálás.Another name for the White Húṇas, or for a section of the White Húṇa swarm, is preserved by Cosmas39 in the form Juvia. This form, if it is not a misreading for Ounia or Húṇa, suggests Jáuvla the recently identified name of the tribe ennobled in India by the great Toramáṇa (a.d. 450–500) and his son Mihirakula (a.d. 500–540), and of which a trace seems to remain in the Jáwla and Jháwla divisions of Panjáb Gujjars.40 This Jáuvla, under such a fire baptism as would admit the holders of the name among Hindus, might be turned into Jvála flaming and Jvála be shortened to Jhála. That Jhála was formerly punningly connected with flame is shewn by a line from the bard Chand, ‘The lord of the Ránás the powerful Jhála like a flaming fire.’41 That the Káthiáváḍa bards were either puzzled by the name Jhála or were unwilling to admit its foreign origin is shewn by the story preserved in the Rás Málá,42 that the tribe got the name because the children of Hirpál Makvána, about to be crushed by an elephant, were snatched away jhála by their witch-mother. It has been noticed in the text that the break in Gujarát History between a.d. 480 and 520, agreeing with the term of Húṇa supremacy in North India, seems to imply a similar supremacy in Gujarát. The facts that up to the twelfth century Húṇas held a leading place in Gujarát chronicles,43 and that while in Rájputána and other parts of Northern India the traces of Huns are fairly widespread in Gujarát they have almost if not altogether disappeared, support the view that the Húṇa strain in Káthiáváḍa is hid under the names Mera, Jethva, and Jhála.44