Puran Mal

Raja Puran Mal (r. 1529 – January 1543) was a Rajput^[1] ruler of Chanderi and Raisen, present-day town in Madhya Pradesh, India, during the Mughal period and the Suri dynasty.^[2][3]

Puran Mal
Raja of Chanderi
Reign	1529–January 1543
Predecessor	Babur
Successor	Sher Shah Suri

He defeated Babur's Mughal army at Chanderi in 1529 and occupied the Chanderi Fort. Negotiations were made after Sher Shah Suri's attack on the fort in 1542 but Puran Mal was killed by conspiracists.^[4]

Conflict with Babur

Babur attacked India in 1527 and Rajput kings of Rajasthan under the leadership of Rana Sanga of Mewar failed to stop him in Battle of Khanwa. The defeat of Rajput kings in Khanwa allowed Babur to capture a great portion of Indian territory, which included Chanderi. He is also noted to treat Hindus of Chanderi poorly. This was supposedly the reason why Puran Mal attacked Chanderi in 1529, defeated Mughal army of Babur and captured Chanderi fort.^[5] After this defeat, the Mughals left Chanderi and Puran Mal took over the control of Chanderi.

Conflict with Sher Shah Suri

Main article: Siege of Chanderi

The Mughal Empire was defeated by Sur Empire of Sher Shah Suri.

In 1542, Sher Shah added Malwa to his empire. During this campaign, he ordered his amir Shujaat Khan to bring Puran Mal to his presence. Shujaat Khan conducted Puran Mal, who had taken with him 6,000 horsemen before Sher Shah, who at once presented his new ally with a hundred horses and a hundred splendid robes of honour and then sent him home. Puran Mal set out for the return journey to Raisen leaving his brother Chaturbhuj in the service of Sher Shah. This arrangement soon went away. In 1543, a year after the understanding between the Afghan sultan and the Puran Mal, Sher Shah took Chanderi from Puran Mal and then laid siege to his stronghold Raisen. As his motive for this campaign Sher Shah is said to have given vent to his anger against Puran Mal, ‘who had made captives of the families of Muslims in Chanderi’, had forcibly made their daughters to be the dancing-girls and had not co-operated with his son. The siege continued for six months with the fort coming under heavy bombardment. Artillery proved to be the deciding factor and Puran Mal had to negotiate once again with Sher Shah. The negotiations were soon successful. Sher Shah granted to Puran Mal the iqta of Benares.^[6]

Death

A little afterwards the negotiation, a number of Muslim women of Chanderi presented themselves before Sher Shah on the road-side and complained to him about Puran Mal. ‘He has killed our husbands’, they said, ‘put in chains our daughters whom he caused to dance along with the dancing-girls and has seized all our lands and earthly possessions.’ They threatened to accuse the sultan on the day of resurrection if he did not revenge them and, when he reminded them of the ‘oaths and vows’ that had been taken to guarantee the safety of the infidel, they told him to consult the ulema of his camp. Apparently Sher Shah simply had to comply with this. The ulema got together and issued a fatwa deciding that Puran Mal deserved death. The camp of the sultan’s new ally was now surrounded by elephants and troops. Seeing this, Puran Mal went into his tent and severed the head of his beloved wife, namely, Ratnavali, brought it before his dear and near ones and ordered them likewise to slay their families. In the ensuing fight, 10,000 Rajput soldiers laid down their lives fighting. Abul Fazl denounces Sher Shah for his dishonesty and calls the ulema misguided men.^[4] Historian Abbas Sarwani describes a scene of the battle thus, "While the Hindus were employed in putting their women and families to death, the Afghans on all sides commenced the slaughter of the Hindus. Puran Mal and his companions... failed not to exhibit valour and gallantry, but in the twinkling of an eye all were slain." Only a few women and children survived. Puran Mal's daughter was given to minstrels to be a dancing girl while his three nephews were castrated. As an excuse for the treachery, Sher Shah claimed it as a revenge for enslavement of Muslim women and that he had once, when seriously ill, pledged to wipe out the Rajputs of Raisen.^[7]

References

1. Chandra, Satish (2005). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals Part - II. Har-Anand Publications. ISBN 978-81-241-1066-9.
2. "इतिहास". chanderi.mpenagarpalika.com. Retrieved 13 August 2021.
3. Chandra, Satish (2005). Medieval India: From Sultanat to the Mughals Part - II. Har-Anand Publications. p. 78. ISBN 978-81-241-1066-9. but he had been forced to allow local chiefs, including the Rajputs of Chanderi and Raisin, to function as almost independent potentates. Sher Khan invaded and conquered Malwa in 1542, but allowed many of the Hindu rajas to continue in their principalities. The following year, he returned to Malwa to crush a rebellion there, and used the opportunity to oust the powerful Rajput chief Puranmal from Chanderi-22 miles from modern Bhopal. Puran Mal who had defied Sher Shah earlier, withstood the siege. He came out of the fort with four thousand Rajputs and their families after a binding agreement had been reached by the two parties. But the Rajputs and their families were slaughtered when they were resting near Sher Shah's camp, despite the promise of a solemn safe conduct. This is a blemish on Sher Shah which cannot be washed away by the argument of some Afghan historians that no promise needed to be kept with an infidel king, and that the Rajputs had kept Muslim women from respected families in their houses, a charge which Puran Mal had denied. It might be mentioned that a similar charge was levied earlier on his father, Silhadi.
4. A., Kolff, Dirk H. (2002). Naukar, Rajput, and sepoy : the ethnohistory of the military labour market in Hindustan, 1450-1850. Cambridge University Press. pp. 106–107. ISBN 0-521-52305-2. OCLC 717564639.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
5. Madhya Pradesh (India), V. S. Krishnan (1994). Madhya Pradesh: District Gazetteers. Government Central Press.
6. A., Kolff, Dirk H. (2002). Naukar, Rajput, and sepoy : the ethnohistory of the military labour market in Hindustan, 1450-1850. Cambridge University Press. p. 105. ISBN 0-521-52305-2. OCLC 717564639.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
7. Eraly, Abraham (2002) [First published 1997]. Emperors of the Peacock Throne: The Saga of the Great Mughals. Penguin Books India. pp. 91–92. ISBN 978-0-14-100143-2.