Unsung heroes of Bharatavarsha — the glory of Raja Bhoja

The year is 1024. After fierce resistance from valiant Hindu devotees, Mahmud of Ghazni emerges victorious, barbarically smashes the sacred Shivalinga and burns the beautiful temple — massacring 50,000 Hindus and plundering all the immense amount of wealth.

After acquiring a humongous quantity of wealth well over 20,000,000 dirhams and annihilating almost every Hindu warrior in his way — Ghazni did something really illogical — something which would not be done under ordinary circumstances. He did NOT return via the same old route he had invaded — he chose another difficult route via the perilous deserts of Kutch and Sindh- Why did he do that? Why not retreat easily via the old route?

The simple reason of this was FEAR. Fear of encountering one of the most powerful and glorious Hindu Emperors of Bharatavarsha during those times. His name and glory struck anxiety & fear in the heart of Ghazni & his men. Standing with a defeated & exhausted army, Ghazni feared utter defeat & loss of all the wealth he had plundered by his hands.

Such was the fear within the tyrannical Ghazni’s heart that he willingly took the perilous and almost untraversable desert route, sacrificing many of his Muslim soldiers in the process, who died due to dehydration & exhaustion after fighting in tedious battles. He felt dying by the hands of nature’s wrath was still a better deal than dying by the hands of a certain “Param Deo”

The Tayaqat-i-Akbari mentions that Sultan Ghazni felt it extremely unadvisable, under all circumstances, to have a direct military conflict with this “Param Deo”.

His troops, unfortunately for Ghazni, couldn’t retreat as swiftly and easily as he had planned. They faced extreme difficulties (as stated above) — thousands died due to dehydration and physical exhaustion, since the temperatures of the Sindh desert reach upto 46 degree Celsius! Not to mention, the numerous logistical challenges they would face while transporting supplies.)It was clear that Param Deo was extremely powerful; thus Ghazni chose such a hasty retreat over a war. He even risked fighting against the Jats of Sindh — who had a clear geographical advantage — which further killed more of his men, affected his supply chains & led to lack of resources also caused by the plundering — but he never took the risk of returning to Ghazni (his capital) via the old, same route. Why was this?

It was due to this certain, mysterious “Param Deo”.

Now, the obvious question arises — “Who is this Param Deo”. According to some, it was Bhima I of the Chalukyas, but he was a novice ruler at that time — having succeeded to the throne only recently years before Ghazni’s raid. A list of reasons why Bhima I does not quite suite the personality of “Param Deo”:

Etymology might as well hold the key here in identifying “Param Deo”, along with a bunch of historical facts. “Parama Deo” is an obvious mistranslation of the word “Paramara-deva” i.e. Lord of the Paramaras — clearly referring to the glorious Raja Bhoja of the Paramara Dynasty. It can also be a mistranslation of another title of raja Bhoja — which is “Parameswara Paramabhattaraka”. This must be the case, since Firishta was a Persian poet who must have mistranslated “Paramara-deva” (or “Parameswara Paramabhattaraka”) to “Param Deo” and must have mistaken him for Bhima I.

This is precisely what Sun Tzu meant when he said “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”. Bhoja’s military was so threatening, that Ghazni truly feared it & had to retreat from Bharata via an arduous route — even if it costed the lives of his own soldiers.