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Pathania is the name of a branch of the Tomara gotra of Chandravanshi Rajputs, who claim a mythological descent from Arjuna, the hero of the Mahabharata. They mostly live in and around Himachal Pradesh, in North India. They established the kingdom of Nurpur in Himachal Pradesh during the 11th century and ruled there until 1849.
Brief history
Rana Jethpal (1100?), the younger brother of King Anangapal II of Delhi, sought to conquer Jallandhar Doab (Bist Doab). After crossing the Beas River, he captured the fort of Bhet, and for this reason became known as Rana Bhet. Later, he came upon the city of Pathankot (possibly ancient Pratisthana), and following the tradition of Rajputs, in which the king almost always took his name from the name of the country where he exercised his dominion, he came to be known as a Pathania Rajput, instead of a Tomara.
The kingdom of Nurpur had its capital at Pathankot, now a district of Punjab, India. The kingdom included a large tract on the plains of the Punjab; also the whole of the present Nurpur Tahsil of Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, with the addition of Shahpurkandi, now in Gurdaspur, and also a small tract to the west of the Ravi, called Lakhanpur, now in Jammu & Kashmir State. The kingdom was bounded on the north by Kangra and Chamba, on the south by the Punjab plains, and on the west by the Ravi river. The capital was at Pathankot, which was known as Paithan in the medieval times. All through their history the Pathania clan rebelled against the foreign invaders, both Muslims and the British. Although sometimes the Pathania kings held the high offices of Generals known as Mansabdar (Army Commander, reserved for Hindu and Muslim princes of note) in the Mughal military and captured many a kingdom for the Mughal emperor in Hindustan and beyond the Indus up till Uzbekistan yet repeatedly they rebelled against the forces of the Mughals and other foreign invaders. The most popular uprising was by Wazir Ram Singh Pathania who led a rebellion against British Raj and was subsequently defeated by British after a hard fought battle . He was deported to Rangoon where he died in the imprisonment. Local still sing ballads in his memory and a statue commemorating him exists on the Pathankot-Dalhousie road.
References
- The Princely and Noble Families of the Former Indian Empire: Himachal Pradesh V. 1 by Mark Brentnall, Indus Publishing, p. 352
- Wooden Temples of Himachal Pradesh By Mian Goverdhan Singh, Indus Publishing, p. 39
- The Princely and Noble Families of the Former Indian Empire: Himachal Pradesh V. 1 By Mark Brentnall, Indus Publishing, p. 351