View source for Rajput: Tomara, Tuar, Tunwar

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From '''The Tribes And Castes Of The Central Provinces Of India '''
 
By R. V. Russell
 
Of The Indian Civil Service
 
Superintendent Of Ethnography, Central Provinces
 
Assisted By  
Rai Bahadur Hira Lal,  
Extra Assistant Commissioner
 
Macmillan And Co., Limited, London, 1916.
 
''' NOTE 1: The 'Central Provinces' have since been renamed Madhya Pradesh. '''

NOTE 2: While reading please keep in mind that all articles in this series have been scanned from a book. During scanning some errors are bound to occur. Some letters get garbled. Footnotes get inserted into the main text of the article, interrupting the flow. Readers who spot errors  might like to correct them, and shift footnotes gone astray to their rightful  place.

=Rajput: Tomara, Tuar, Tunwar=

This clan is an ancient
one, supposed by Colonel Tod to be derived from the Yadavas
or lunar race. The name is said to come from tomar, a club/
The Tomara clan was considered to be a very ancient one,
and the great king Vikramaditya, whose reign was the Hindu
Golden Age, was held to have been sprung from it. 

These
traditions are, however, now discredited, as well as that of
Delhi having been built by a Tomara king, Anang Pal I,, in
A.D. 733. Mr. V. A. Smith states that Delhi was founded in
993—994, and Anangapala, a Tomara king, built the Red Fort
about 1050. In 1052 he removed the celebrated iron pillar,
on which the eulogy of Chandragupta Vikramaditya is incised,
from its original position, probably at Mathura, and
set it up in Delhi as an adjunct to a group of temples from
which the Muhammadans afterwards constructed the great
mosque.^ This act apparently led to the tradition that
Vikramaditya had been a Tomara, and also to a much longer
historical antiquity being ascribed to the clan than it really
possessed. 

The Tomara rule at Delhi only lasted about
150 years, and in the middle of the twelfth century the town
was taken by Bisal Deo, the Chauhan chieftain of Ajmer, whose
successor, Prithwi Raj, reigned at Delhi, but was defeated and
killed by the Muhammadans in A.D. 1192. Subsequently,
perhaps in the reign of Ala-ud-Dln Khilji, a Tomara dynasty
established itself at Gwalior, and one of their kings, Dungara
Singh (1425 — 1454), had executed the celebrated rocksculptures
of Gwalior.^ In i 5 1 8 Gwalior was taken by the
Muhammadans, and the last Tomara king reduced to the
status of an ordinary jaglrdar. 

The Tomara clan is numerous
in the Punjab country near Delhi, where it still possesses
high rank, but in the United Provinces it is not so much
esteemed.'* No ruling chief now belongs to this clan. In
the Central Provinces the Tomaras or Tunwars belong
principally to the Hoshangabad District. The zamindars of
Bilaspur, who were originally of the Tawar subcaste of the
Kawar tribe, now also claim to be Tomara Rajputs on the
strength of the similarity of the name.
^ Mr. Crooke's Tribes and Castes, ^ Elliot, Supplemental Glossary, s.v.
art, Tomara.

^ Early Hist07y of India, 3rd cdi- ^ Mr. Crooke's T^-ibes and Castes,
tion, p. 386. art. Tomara.