|
History And Archeology Of Nagpur
|
Ponwars Of Malwa
|
By the end of the 2nd century, however, the Nagpur country appears to have passed out of the hands of the Rashtrakuta kings into those of the Pramaras or Ponwars of Malwa. The Prashasti or stone inscription of Nagpur, dated 1104-05 A.D. mentions one Lakshma Deva who is supposed to have been a viceroy at Nagpur for the Malwa king. We know also that princes of this line penetrated to Berar and the Godavari and even to the Carnatic in the pursuit of conquest. A century before this, Munja, the seventh Raja of the Pramara line, had sixteen times defeated the western Chalukya king Taila II, but his seventeenth attack failed and Munja, who had crosse the Godavari, Taila’s northern boundary, was defeated, captured and executed about 995 A.D. It is possible that the existing Ponwar caste of the Nagpur country who have obviously been settled in the Province for a long period and have abandoned the customs of Rajpus, are a relic of these temporary dominance of the kings of Malwa. According to their own traditions, the first settlement of the Ponwars was at Nandivardhan or Nagardhan, which as has already been seen, was at that time one of the two chief places in the District; and the ancestors of the Ponwars were probably the soldiers of the chieftain who ruled at Nagpur. Not having brought their families with them, they would naturally intermarry with the women of the country, and develop into a separate caste.
|
|