Note 23 — INDEX

Details are given above under Objects. The local legends confuse Shripunj and Jagsom. It seems probable that Jagsom was not the name of a king but is a contraction of Jagatsvámi the title of the Sun. This Shripunj, or at least the restorer or founder of Shrimál, is also called Kanak, who according to some accounts came from the east and according to others came from Kashmír. Kanak is said also to have founded a town Kankávati near the site of the present village of Chhakla about eleven miles (7 kos) east of Bhinmál. This recollection of Kanak or Kanaksen is perhaps a trace of the possession of Márwár and north Gujarát by the generals or successors of the great Kushán or Śaka emperor Kanak or Kanishka the founder of the Śaka era of a.d. 78. According to the local Bháts this Kanak was of the Janghrabal caste and the Pradiya branch. This caste is said still to hold 300 villages in Kashmír. According to local accounts the Shrimáli Bráhmans, and the Dewala and Devra Rájputs all came from Kashmir with Kanak. Tod (Western India, 213) notices that the Annals of Mewar all trace to Kanaksen of the Sun race whose invasion is put at a.d. 100. As the Shrimális and most of the present Rájput chiefs are of the Gujar stock which entered India about a.d. 450 this tracing to Kanishka is a case of the Hindu law that the conqueror assimilates the traditions of the conquered that with the tradition he may bind to his own family the Śrí or Luck of his predecessors. ↑