Suri – Surname

According to Daya Ram Sawhney (who was head of the department of archaeology in the state of Jammu & Kashmir and excavated some ancient temples, 1912-15; later he was knighted for his work at Harrapa and Mohenjodero….became Sir Daya Ram), the best warriors among the Turkish Shahiyas and the Indian Shahiyas were called Kshuri-Dhars (Sword-Weilders) and Maha-Kshuri-Dhars, etc.[1]

Gradually, some of their descendants abbreviated these titles to Kshuri or Suri and appropriated them as family surnames. Others shortened it to Dhar (following the common practice of using the last part of a name as the surname).[2]

In the interim period, some well-known Kashmiri generals and ministers have been Suyya, Surya, Sur, etc.[3] Kalhan’s Rajatarangini mention a general called Kshur (in Verse 3315 of Canto VIII in R.S.Pandit’s Translation).

Discuss parallel with Ghazni/Ghazna….

DETAILS OF OUR SURI ANCESTORS IN KASHMIR ARE GIVEN LATER IN THIS SCRIPT

One of our ancestors in medieval Kashmir, Adityashri Suri, introduced Soma Pandit into Sultan Zain-ul-Abedin’s Translation Bureau which became the model for Abul Fazal a century later. Soma Pandit later wrote the famous Zain Charit (biography of the Sultan) which says, inter alia, that this Suri family were so called because of their ancient swords (called Kshuri in Sanskrit and Kashmiri).

Let us trace the background further. In his commentary on the Rajatarangini, R.S.Pandit (brother-in-law of Jawaharlal Nehru) says: “…up to the 13^th century, the long and the short swords in Japan were called Kshuri  and Kshurika.”

OUR CHHURI & CHAAKU

Multi-pointed throwing weapons called Shuriken (pronounced "Sure-ee-ken"), were an indispensable part of the arsenal used by the NINJA , secret agents of Japan's feudal era from the 13th to 17th Century. The shurikens consisted of little, hand-thrown weapons. Today, the word is used to mean Darts.

Another Japanese word nunchaku comes from the Hokkien (Min Nan) word nng-chiat-kun(no-chiat kun) (兩截棍); the weapon was developed in the 17th century. Peasant farmers were forbidden conventional weaponry such as arrows or blades, so they improvised what they had available.

The nunchaku as a weapon has surged in popularity since martial artist Bruce Lee used it in his movies in the 1970s.

We move from Japanese to another language.

Romani, the language of the Roma or Gypsies, belongs in the Indo-European family of languages with many similarities with North Indian dialects. The Roma are a people with dark skin and hair who speak Romani and who traditionally live by seasonal work and fortune-telling; they are believed to have originated in northern India but now are living on all continents (but mostly in Europe, North Africa, and North America).

Let us look at a book in Romani….

Dukh - Pain, a book of poetry by Bosnian writer Hedina Sijercic has been brought to my attention by the book's publisher, Roland Hönsch of Magoria Books.  The poems are in Romani. English translations are given. Out of dozens of similarities to Hindi, I have chosen one:

The first word below is in Romani, the second Hindi and the last one is the English meaning.

(churika = chhuri = knife).

This takes us back to Japan. See History of the Jews in Japan. An article that has been widely published, entitled "Mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes: Japan" by Arimasa Kubo (a Japanese writer living in Japan who studied the Hebrew Bible), concludes that many traditional customs and ceremonies in Japan are very similar to the ones of ancient Israel and that perhaps these rituals came from the religion and customs of the Jews and the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel who might have come to ancient Japan.

Joseph Eidelberg makes a similar case in his book "The Biblical Hebrew Origin of the Japanese People".  Late in his life, Joseph Eidelberg began analyzing ancient traditions, religious ceremonies, historical names, haiku poems, Kana writings and Japanese folk songs, discovering thousands of words with similar pronunciations, sounds and translations between Hebrew and Japanese.

These discoveries are history in the making, giving credible new information on the meanings of many unknown Japanese words, numbers, songs and cultural traditions – and his book is the first time that these remarkable similarities are combined into a single consistent theory. 

The Saka connection

For some people studying the Lost Tribes of Israel, the Behistun Inscription has provided an invaluable missing link. George Rawlinson, Sir Henry Rawlinson's younger brother, connected the Saka/Gimiri of the Behistun Inscription with deported Israelites: We have reasonable grounds for regarding the Gimirri, or Cimmerians, who first appeared on the confines of Assyria and Media in the seventh century B.C., and the Sacae of the Behistun Rock, nearly two centuries later, as identical with the Beth-Khumree of Samaria, or the Ten Tribes of the House of Israel.

The inscription connects the people known in Old Persian and Elamite as Saka, Sacae or Scythian with the people known in Babylonian as Gimirri or Cimmerian. This is important because the Assyrian's referred to the Northern Kingdom of Israel in their records as the "House of Khumri", named after Israel's King Omri of the 8th century BCE. Phonetically "Khumri", "Omri", and "Gimiri" are similar.

In the photo of the Black Obelisk below, compare King Jehu's pointed Saka style headdress, which is similar to the captive Saka king seen to the far right on the Behistun Inscription. King Jehu of Israel was a successor to King Omri of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Jehu kneeling at the feet of Shalmaneser III on the Black Obelisk

There are quite a number of peoples today who cling to the ancient tradition that they are descended from the Jewish Lost Tribes: the tribesmen of Afghanistan, the Mohammedan Berbers of West Africa, the six million Christian Igbo people of Nigeria and some Mizo tribes in India. Unquestionably, they all practice certain ancient Hebraic customs and beliefs, which lends some credibility to their claims. The Chiang Min people of northwest China also claim to be descendents of Abraham.

Origins of the Family

The Rajataringini is our only source for Kashmir’s ancient history. Thereafter we are left with the manipulated accounts of  mercenaries. Details of the later period are taken from Bamzai’s voluminous work (praised by Jawaharlal Nehru) and the records maintained by the Pandas of  Sukhjiwanmal Suri’s Family[4] at Mattan[5] (as transmitted by  Habibullah Shair, the Field Publicity Officer at Pahalgam in the 1980s….see my notes and Reference Material Binder).

A FAMILY TREE

From these sources, we find one Suri family, traceable from the mid-10^th Century to the mid-12^th Century, as follows:

• Chandrapal Suri, tutor of Queen Didda’s nephew Sangram, who became king of both Kashmir and Lohara.
• Shashimohan, son of Chandrapal, whose sons had to disperse after a king was killed on the 22^nd day of his reign.
• Rudrapal, son of Shashimohan, who played a significant role in regional politics.
• Shivmohan Suri, grandson of Shashimohan (through Rudrapal’s younger brother), who made a mark as a banker in the Deccan.
• Vijay, son of Shivmohan, who followed a royal uncle (Kshitiraj of Lohara) into Sanyas at Thanesar, near Kurukshetra.
• Jai, brother of Vijay, who became involved in a power struggle in the ruling family of Kashmir, ending with victory for Harsha, the Iconoclast and friend of the Turushkas. Both Jai and Harsha died in the very first year(s) of the 12th century.
• Shivrath & Shaktirath, sons of Jai, survived in Lohara and Ujjain.
• Shaktirath’s grandsons in Ujjain were all soldiers: Among their descendants was Jai Singh Suri, the great dramatist.
• His son cashed in on his prestige and founded a dynasty of scholars in the 13^th century onwards. Some of them were prominent in Kashmir.

JAI SINGH SURI’S ANCESTRY

The Rajatarangini covers Kashmir and adjoining territories up to the middle of the 12^th century.In the absence of other sources, we have to rely on conjectures based on the broad descriptions in this poetic chronicle. Subsequent events are reflected in Jai Singh Suri’s work as available in fragments quoted by later generations. He died some time in the early 13^th century. But his descendants embellished their intellectual standing for at least another 250 years.

We detail below the story as told by later generations.

THE UJJAIN PERIOD

The history of this region in that period is too obscure for even the most diligent of historians. If Jai had any members of his family with him when he fled to Dardistan, they must have led lives of great hardship for quite some time.

It is also quite possible that some of them might have escaped to their relations in Ghazni and Ghaur. One possible link is with the Ujjain Suri family mentioned by the famous author of the Hammir Mardan, Jai Singh Suri (1219-29)[6], descendant of a prominent family of scholar-soldiers of Ujjain.

His son (c.1180-1240) boasted of their “illustrious ancestors” in a manuscript (not now traceable) quoted by Adityashri Suri and subsequently by Chatarmal and Malik Haider.

According to them, Raja Bhoj the Second had sent Shivmohan Suri (a grandson of Shashimohan) to Karnataka on a diplomatic mission. Shivmohan’s son Vijay became a hermit (c.1060-1130), while the other son Jai fled to Dard-desh (1060-1130), leaving one son Shivrath in the Lohara kingdom, while another went to Ujjain. This was Shaktirath Suri (c.1090-1170).    

During the next hundred years, circumstances in North India led to a great upheaval (check any links with Prithvi Raj Chauhan and Mohammed Ghauri). Even Ujjain turned from scholarship to militancy. Shaktirath’s grandsons (around 1200-1270) are described as “warriors” or “soldiers of some standing”. Their names: Digvijay Singh, Ranvir Singh and Paramvir Singh. (Note the Singh suffix).

One link between north-west India and middle India during this epoch was Sant Namdev who came to the Punjab, stayed there for a long time, accumulated a large following and returned to Maharashtra with some of his Punjabi devotees. Even otherwise, there was a regular flow of traffic between north and south for commercial and military or political reasons.

Malwa, under the first and second Raja Bhoj, was the hub of much activity.

Down in the Deccan, Shivmohan Suri’s descendants became integrated into society as traders, money-lenders and goldsmiths. Shivraj Suri (around 1340-1395) is the next one to find mention in known records (see the Vijayanagar Story below). 

BEFORE THE ADVENT OF ISLAM

King Kshema of Kashmir (950-58) had married Didda (“Elder Sister”), daughter’s daughter of  Bhim, a Shahiya king.

In the civil strife that followed Kshema’s death, Didda struggled hard to survive. Her grandsons were killed in 973-75 but she succeeded in capturing power in 980 (after mercilessly eliminating many rival contenders for power, including some near relations). She ruled Kashmir  (a contemporary of Mahmood Ghaznavi) until her death several decades later.[7]

The Suri families of Kashmir began to disperse shortly after Didda’s death, partly due to reprisals by her victims and partly for better prospects elsewhere. Some details follow.

OUR FAMILY IN KASHMIR

Queen Didda had appointed her brother’s son as Yuvraj of Kashmir. On her death, this man (Sangramaraj, son of Udayaraj, erstwhile king of the adjacent state of Lohara), became king of both Kashmir and Lohara.

In his boyhood, he had been under the tutelage of Udayraj’s cousin Chandrapal Suri. During his kingship, he relied heavily on the advice of Chandrapal’s son, Shashimohan Suri.

When King Sangramaraj died in the year 1028, his son and successor King Hariraj quarreled with Shashimohan over some trivial matter; the Shahiya Loharwals formed a separatist clique and assassinated Hariraj when he had been on the raj-gaddi for only 22 days. One version says that Hariraj’s brother Ananta quickly mounted a counter-coup and the assassins fled from Kashmir to Lohara.[8] The other version is that Ananta had long coveted the throne….

THE EXILES

Shashimohan was either killed or jailed but his son Rudrapal Suri went to Jullundur.[9] His younger brother went on to the court of Raja Bhoj at Malwa (1018-58), says Alberuni. Rudrapal’s nephew Shivmohan (born and bred at Malwa) became a banker of some standing and spread his business network up to Karnataka.

Rudrapal became the son-in-law of Raja Indu Chandra of Jullundur.  His younger Saali  was later married to King Ananta of Kashmir (1028-63), leading later to the re-unification of Kashmir and Lohara. This Queen Suryamati  told Ananta  in 1063 to abdicate in favour of his (and her) son Kalash. She later extended Kashmir’s sway up to Chamba whose Raja Shalavahan is known by a copper-plate inscription extant.[10]

THE KARNATAKA BRANCH

It is almost impossible to find out what happened to the descendants of Rudrapal Suri of Jullundur in the next two centuries.[11] In all probability, they got merged into the dominant Khokhar and Bhatti clans.[12]

However, his nephew Shivmohan prospered in the Deccan. One of his sons, Vijay, came to the family’s pilgrimage centre at Thanesar for the Shraadh rites of his father and stayed on.[13] His brother Jai became involved in a power struggle in Kashmir between two brothers, Harsh[14] and Utkarsh, towards the end of the 11^th century. Early in the 12^th century, he fled to Dardistan and was killed in an avalanche.                            Add story….10/4/96 

A PERIOD OF CHAOS

This is the last of the events covered by the Rajatarangini. The 12^th century was a period of great turmoil in the whole of Asia. Deep inside India, the struggle for supremacy between the Pratihars, the Rashtrakuts and the Pals had left behind no clear winner. In the north-west, the native principalities were at odds with each other, culminating in the defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan by Muizuddin Suri in 1192.

Meanwhile, Central Asia was in the throes of conflict. China’s Liao dynasty (916-1125) suffered a split. Their Western faction (Kara-Khitay means Western Region)[15] defeated Persia’s ruler Sanjar at Samarqand in 1141. This victory of a Buddhist army over a Muslim army stopped the onward march of Islam for some time.

Meanwhile, Sanjar had also been troubled (on his north-west) by the revival of the Khwarazm-Shahi dynasty in 1128. Their leader Aatish ruled up to 1156, capturing Sanjar, who died in 1157.

KHWARAZM & INDIA

We left Jairaj Suri (or was he Jaipal Suri?) escaping from Kashmir into Dardistan in the year 1101. The history of this region in that period is too obscure for even the most diligent of historians. If he had any members of his family with him, they must have led lives of great hardship for quite some time.

It is also quite possible that some of them might have escaped to their relations in Ghazni and Ghaur.

It was while Khwarazm-Shah was busy fighting Sanjar of Persia that Alauddin Suri of Ghaur swooped down on Ghazna (later known as Ghazni) “and had its entire population slaughtered after luring them from their hiding-places by the call to prayer”, says The Cambridge History of Islam, in the year 1150.

During the whole of this century, the Hindu Shahiyas (including our clan) were the victims of repeated raids by both Ghaznavis and Ghauris.

It was all a struggle for power and riches, not for religion, because these people were attacking Muslims also in their north-west and Buddhists in their north-east. Early in the 13^th century, some Central-Asian Muslims were seeking refuge from other fellow-Muslims  and their preferred destination was north-west India which had a culture similar to their own.

One link between north-west India and middle India was Sant Namdev who came to the Punjab, stayed there for a long time, accumulated a large following and returned to Maharashtra with some of the Punjabi devotees. Even otherwise, there was a regular flow of traffic between north and south for commercial and military or political reasons.

Malwa, under the first and second Raja Bhoj, was the hub of much activity.

Down in the Deccan, Shivmohan Suri’s descendants had become integrated into society as traders, money-lenders and goldsmiths. Shivraj Suri (around 1340-1395) is the next one to find mention in known records (see the Vijayanagar Story below). 

THE CHADHAS

Harsh had been killed by a group of people led by a Chadha (a son-in-law of Jai) who was then the city-prefect of Srinagar.      Detail 12/6/96.

Their figure-head Uchchal was assassinated within one year, but his brother Sussal picked up enough support to rule Kashmir for the next eight years. Then followed an interlude, the one-year rule of Bhikshachar.   Detail 13/6

Sussal then regained power and ruled both Kashmir and Lohara up to the year 1123. But the Lohara dynasty petered out by 1171 amidst chaos, mainly due to the Turcoman attacks.

Kalhan had “taken pains to record the names of authors, poets and playwrights as well as to trace through several generations the histories of families who served the state.” His Rajatarangini takes us up to the middle of the 12^th century. Then we lose track until the beginning of the 14^th century.

SUBSEQUENT HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS include the advent of Islam, first into Kabul, Ghazni and Ghaur, and much later into Kashmir. The whole story is told in another file. That includes the Suri families of these regions.  Here we continue with what is known from Muslim sources about our forebears in Kashmir after the advent of Islam.

MORE ABOUT THE SURI FAMILY IN KASHMIR

During the skirmishes with militant Islam, those of the Suri clan who did not succumb to the new dispensation got scattered in many directions, including Tibet, Chinese Turkestan, Persia and Hindu India.

It is almost impossible to pursue the genealogy of all these families. But we find at least one family with a recorded succession for seven generations.  These include:

• Shridev Suri of Gandhar and Kishtwar, a cousin of Raja Udayandev who ruled Kashmir for 15 years, around 1340.[16]
• Udayashri Suri of Martand, confidante of Sultan Shahabuddin’s Hindu wife, Lakshmi, around 1360.
• Adityashri Suri, scholar and linguist, of Gandhar, who came to Kashmir and settled down in Srinagar permanently.
• Dashrath Suri, soldier-statesman who interacted with Zain-ul-Abedin of Kashmir, Taimur of Central Asia and the Lodi Emperor of Delhi. (c. 1375-1450).
• Ramu Suri (Late 15^th century), a mendicant (Bairagi), a nephew or cousin of Ranu Suri & Sidhpal Suri who killed Mubarak Shah in 1434. His contemporaries and his decendants got scattered to many distant places.

The descendants of one such family were the Suri family of Gandharvapur (Ganagapur, near Sholapur), devotees of Dattatreya. They adopted the infants Dalpat & Lakhpat Suri, from whom we are directly descended in a clearly demarcated blood-line.

Among those who stayed on in Kashmir, the descendants of Dashrath Suri and his son Ramu Suri were much smaller men, until Sukhjiwanmal Suri in the 18^th century.

UNDER KASHMIRI SULTANS

In the year 1315, the Hindu (or Buddhist)[17] ruler of Kashmir, Sinhdev, had two important foreigners on his staff. These were Shah Mirza of Swat (a nearby mountain principality under the suzerainty of Kashmir) and a Tibetan named Rainchen.

Shah Mirza was a tutor of Sinhdev’s children with ministerial rank. He and Rainchen (who was also a convert to Islam) conspired against the ruler and killed him.

Raja Sinhdev’s relation (no details are available in my sources) Udayandev found asylum in Kishtwar with his cousin Udaybhan Suri, a trader in opium and other local produce. Udayandev came back to Kashmir on the death of Rainchen and married Rainchen’s widow, Kotta Devi. He ruled for 15 years.[18]

THE MUSLIMS TAKE OVER

In the year 1346, Kotta Devi was killed by Shah Mirza; her son was jailed and Shah Mirza captured power, ruling under the title of Shams-ud-Din Shah until his death in 1349. His successors also gave themselves rhyming titles.

It will be noticed that we are back with people who flaunt their Muslim identity with the surname “ud-Din” like the Suri family of Ghaur mentioned above. Further, we shall see below that these neo-Muslims had matrimonial ties with both Hindus and Muslims.

FOUR BROTHERS IN A ROW

Shams-ud-Din was succeeded by his eldest son Jamshed who died within a year. The next king was Jamshed’s younger brother who ruled from 1350 to 1359 (according to one source)[19] under the title of Alla-ud-Din, followed by yet another brother, “Shahab-ud-Din”.[20]

Feroz Tughlak of Delhi gave two daughters in marriage to this Sultan Shahabuddin of Kashmir and Shahab’s younger brother Hindal.  Shahab gave his own daughter in marriage to Feroz Tughlak whose mother was the daughter of Rana Mal, the chief of Abohar. .

Sultan Shahabuddin had two ministers, Kotta Bhatt & Udayshri Suri (son of one Shridev Suri of Mattan, a cousin of Udaybhan of  Kishtwar mentioned above) who had come with Shahab’s Hindu queen Lakshmi. Udayshri Suri established contacts with the Raja of Nagarkot (Kangra) and the Raja helped Kashmir when, in 1361, they plundered some areas in the plains of Punjab.

THE GANDHAR CONNEXION

After the death of the Sultan, Udayshri Suri favoured Queen Lakshmi’s son Hassan to succeed to the throne.[21] But Shahab’s younger brother Hindal drove them out and assumed sovereignty as “Qutb-ud-Din”.

Udayshri Suri escaped to Gandhar, where his young son Adityashri received a thorough grounding in the Vedic heritage as well as the prevailing languages of the region.

Relations between the SURI clans and the KHOKHARS had existed ever since the 10^th & 11^th centuries.  The names of Gul Chander[22] and other Khokhar chiefs (who facilitated the rise of  the  Tughlak dynasty) were matrimonially and politically linked with Suri families during the early 14^th century.  Two Khokhar chiefs of the late 14^th century were even more prominent, as we shall now see.

THE SOUTHWARD MOVEMENT

Earlier,  the saint Namdev had migrated from the South and lived in the Punjab for three decades; then he went back, with a band of Punjabi devotees, including probably some of our clan (c.1270-1350), says the historian Ganpat Rai Suri. Macauliffe accepts this date (in “The Sikh Religion,” Vol VI, p. 18). Dr. Bhandarkar (in “Vaishnavism & Shaivism”.

In those times, the bulk of trade at retail level was in the hands of the KHATRIS in Central & West Punjab, ARORAS in SOUTH PUNJAB, the BANIA AGARWALS east of the SATLUJ, and the MAHA JAINS (now called Mahajans) in the Shivalik hills. ( Source:Sir George Campbell).

The movement of Khatri bankers, goldsmiths and money-lenders to the Deccan had already begun in the previous century, as we shall see later in this narrative.[23]

The descendants of one such family were the Suri family of Gandharvapur (Ganagapur, near Sholapur), devotees of Dattatreya. They adopted the infants Dalpat & Lakhpat Suri, from whom we are directly descended in a clearly demarcated blood-line.