Alha Khand Pdf Download

[Mina Meiss]

Theoriginal language of this work has been continuously modernized over the centuries to suit the dialect of the reciter and it has been lost wholly in this process. This epical work is believed to have been written by Jagnayak (or Jagnik), a contemporary to Chand Bardai and the court poet of Chandela ruler Paramardi Deva (Parmal) of Mahoba in Bundelkhand.[4] The original work is now lost.

The ballads from this work are still sung during the monsoons by the professional bardic singers (known as the Alhets) in various parts of northern India, mostly in Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh and northern Madhya Pradesh.[5] There are two main version of texts.

Mahoba Khand: This work was discovered as a manuscript by Shyamsundar Das in 1901 as one of the two sections of a manuscript labelled "Prithviraj Raso". Shyamsundar Das concluded that it is separate text and published it using the title Parmal Raso in 1919. It has 36 cantos, starting from the origin of the Chandellas and ends with Alha becoming a disciple of yogi Gorakhnath and retiring to forests as a monk.[6] The author laments on the end of the Hindu kingdoms and the beginning of the Pathan rule. It uses the traditional metres like doha, chaupai, chhappaya etc.

Mahoba Samaya is a section of some of the Prithviraj Raso manuscripts. The story given is essentially the same as in Mahoba Khand. It however does not have a section on the origin of Chandellas.[7]

Alha-khand: With 23 cantos, starting with Pritvhiraj winning over Sanyogita and ending with Bela becoming sati.[8] In 1865, Charles Elliott compiled a recension by collating various oral versions into 23 cantos and this recension was the basis of the first printed edition in 1871.[2] Later George Abraham Grierson enlarged this recension with additional inputs. Portions of this recension was translated into English ballad metre by William Waterfield, under the title of The Nine-Lakh Chain or the Maro Feud (1876). Later, this translation, along with the abstracts of the untranslated portions and an introduction written by Grierson was published under the title of The Lay of Alha: A Saga of Rajput Chivalry as Sung by Minstrels of Northern India (1923).

The most popular version of Alha-Khand is the text written by Lalitaprasad Mishra, composed at the request of Prayag Narayan, the son of Munshi Nawal Kishore in Samvat 1956 (1900 CE).[9] The work was written in the Alha metre. It has the same 23 cantos as The Lay of Alha, but has much more detailed narration.

While the poetic licence is apparent in the modern versions of the ballads, the attack of Prithviraj Chauhan is directly attested by two inscriptions of 1182CE at Madanpur near Lalitpur in a Jain temple.[12]

The genealogy of Chandela ruler Parmal (Parmardi) given in Mahoba Khand or Alha Khand does not match the genealogy given in Chandela inscriptions. In Mahoba Khand, the father, grandfather and the great-grandfather of Parmal are given as Kirtibramha, Madanbrahma, and Rahilbramha. While Madanavarman (1129-1163), Kirttivarman (1070-1098) and Rahila (9th century) were indeed ancestors of Paramardi (1166-1202),[13] most names and the sequence do not match.

The Alha Khand states the end of the Chandellas after Parmal. That is not supported by history. The Chandelas became very weak after the attack by Prithviraj, but the dynasty lingered on at least until 1308, i.e. another century.[14]

A Jain temple in Chhatarpur has an Adinath image installed in Samvat 1208 (1151 AD). According to one reading of the inscription, it mentions Alha, Udal and the entire group.[citation needed] However other scholars have read the inscription differently.[citation needed]

During the Chandella rule, Aharji was a flourishing Jain center in Bundelkhand. It was the site of a massive pratishta in samvat 1237 (1180 CE), many images bearing that date have been found, including a monumental image that mention Paramardideva as the ruling king. With the exception of a single samvat 1241 image, the activity ceased as a result of the Chandella defeat in samvat 1239.[15]

Alha[1] was a legendary Ahir[2][3][4] general of the Chandel king Paramardideva (also known as Parmal), who fought Prithviraj Chauhan in 1182 CE, immortalised in the Alha-Khand ballad. The Alha and Udal of the Ahir clan of Mahoba, are said to had been defeated by Prithviraj Chauhan in 52 battles.[source?][5][6][7][8] The Alha and Udal ballads sing of Ahir bravery in the medieval age.[9][10]

Alha is an oral epic, the story is also found in a number of medieval manuscripts of the Prithviraj Raso and the Bhavishya Purana. There is also a belief that the story was originally written by Jagnik, bard of Mahoba, but no manuscript has yet been found.[12]

The lay of Alha (Alhakhand) is one of those indian poems which are mainly of values for the light they caste on Indian ideas. While not altogether historically worthless, in that it uses historical men, and perhaps women too as its Dramatis personae, it is patently a tendencious compilation, inculcating inter alia the proper way to behave to Jogis. But, its dominating theme is burning social question of the status to be allowed to the Banaphar (Ahir) family as Kshatriya.[13]

Alha and Udal were children of the Dasraj, a successful commander of the army of Chandel king Parmal. They belonged to the Banaphar community, which has its origins described in the Ahir/Yadava Kshatriya caste. The Alha-Udal ballads sing of Ahir bravery in medieval period.[1] Banaphar was a society at that time and the people live in jungle.[2] and fought against Rajputs such as Prithvi Raj Chauhan and Mahil.[3] Purana states that Mahil a Rajput and an enemy of Alha and Udal said that Alha has come to be of a different family (kule htnatvamagatah) because his mother is an Aryan Ahir.[4]

According to the Bhavishya Purana, a text with several interpolated sections that cannot be reliably dated, Alha's mother, Devaki, was a member of the Ahir caste. The Ahirs are among the "oldest pastoralists" and were rulers of Mahoba.[5]

The Even today, listenin further adds that it is not only the mothers of Alha and Udal who are Ahirs, but their paternal grandmother from ent also h are also Ahir, who entered the family with a blessing of ref>{{Cite book that come not from wrestling buffaloes but from her nine-year vow to the nine Durgas and hence the Ahirs were natural relatives of the family. Some of this checks out with the Elliot's Alha, where the gopalaka (Ahir) King Dalvahana is called Dalpat, King of meaning "Al. he is still the two girls' father, but merely gives them to Dasraj who was an Ahir and Bachraj when Parmal requested him.], is still sung in the heartla The Queen Malhna insists that King Parmal reward Dashraj and Bachraj with brides from within the Chandel land. King Dalpat of s at Maihar volunteers his daughters Devi (Devaki, Alha's mother) and Birma Udal's mother. Queen Malhna welcomes Devi to emely plea by placing the nine lakh chain (Naulakha Haar) around her neck and also gives Birma a necklace. King Parmal then gives new Banaphar families a village where they bear and raise their sons named Alha and ants were weighed by.him on one hand").

Alha hadAlha is one of the heroes of the Alha-Khand poem, popularly recited in the Bundelkhand region of India. It may be based on a work Mahoba Khand which has been published with the title Parmal Raso.[citation needed]

Alha is an oral epic, the story is also found in a number of medieval manuscripts of the Prithviraj Raso and the Bhavishya Purana. There is also a belief that the story was originally written by Jagnik, bard of Mahoba, but no manuscript has yet been found.[6]

Gyan Chaturvedi, who was born in the region but left it long ago, depicts its inhabitants with a delightful mix of indulgence and mockery. He portrays them as inheriting a certain attitude and swagger, and going around flexing their muscles, whether existent or non-existent. The men all walk a jaunty walk, talk a macho foul-mouthed talk, and often get down to fisticuffs, with a knife or katta (a country-made pistol) never far out of reach.

These characters lead their lives by certain hallowed maxims. Might is right. Everyone can be bribed. Education is not for them. Regular employment or naukri is infra dig, even if it can be had. Women should neither be seen nor heard. And there is much honour in honour killings. Altogether, though the famed feudal age may have passed, the feudal mindset prevails, finding sustained expression in the running feuds.

The plot features a widowed mother, who remains largely invisible, and her four sons and a daughter. The siblings are called throughout by their familiar demotic names: Guchchan, Chhuttan, Lalla, Chandu, and Binnoo. The mild-mannered Guchchan feels so out of step with his surroundings that he eventually renounces home and hearth and just disappears. Chhuttan, the most

extravagantly stylish of them all, ends up with his limbs broken by the police for no apparent fault of his. Lalla, a bodybuilder who is full of quixotic money-making schemes that invariably fail, performs a long-deferred honour killing and is awarded a life sentence. Chandu, the studious, bright boy, becomes a doctor, and is only too glad to escape, heartlessly cutting himself off from the continuing travails of his joint family. Binnoo silently slaves in the house with her mother, rejected by one potential groom after another, and is eventually married off to an old widower.

The implausible dead-end ending here reflects perhaps the old dichotomy between satire and the novel. For the narrative until this point had sparkled with hyperbolic wit, outrageous high jinks, and scenes of farcical comedy.

Chaturvedi writes with the proprietary air of newly unveiling Bundelkhand, rather as Vasco da Gama had discovered India for Europe, and the English-language reader may well be taken in by this typical Bundelkhandi brag. But Govind Mishra in his novel Lal Pili Zameen ( Red Hot Earth) had covered the same seething ground with greater inwardness and compassion back in 1976. And Maitreyi Pushpa, in her many novels including Idannamam (This is Not Mine, 1994), had depicted three generations of Bundelkhandi women endowed with transgressive agency and a feisty boldness even in sexual matters.

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