First Battle of Tarain

In January 1191, close to Tarain, today's Taraori in the Indian state of Haryana, a coalition of Rajput rulers led by Prithviraj Chauhan of the Chahamana dynasty defeated an invading army of the Ghurid ruler Mu'izz ad-Din, better known as Muhammad of Ghor. The sultan was badly wounded and fell back to Ghazni. The Rajput success did not last: he returned with a stronger army and won the Second Battle of Tarain, which ended Prithviraj's rule.

What is known of the battle comes from texts written on opposite sides of the conflict. Hasan Nizami's Tajul-Ma'asir reflects the Ghurid point of view, while Jayanaka's Prithviraja Vijaya was produced under Chahamana patronage. Most of the battlefield detail comes from later Persian chronicles, among them Minhaj-i-Siraj's Tabaqat-i Nasiri (1260), Yahya Sirhindi's Tarikh-i-Mubarakshahi (1434) and Firishta's history of the early seventeenth century, along with later Indic works such as the Prithviraj Raso. They disagree over names and details, and their numbers cannot be tested against independent evidence.

Mu'izz ad-Din had been expanding into the north-west of the subcontinent for some years. He took Multan in 1175, was repulsed when he attacked the Chaulukya kingdom of Gujarat in 1178, and captured Lahore from the Ghaznavids in 1186. He then sent an envoy, the chief judge Qiwam-ul Mulk Ruknud Din Hamza, to Prithviraj's court. According to Hasan Nizami, the proposed terms included conversion to Islam and acceptance of Ghurid overlordship. The two sides' texts describe the embassy in strongly partisan language, each flattering its own party and disparaging the other. Prithviraj rejected the terms, and the Ghurid campaign began, possibly in late 1190.

Some time before January 1191 the Ghurids took the fort of Tabarhindah, probably present-day Bathinda. Sirhindi relates that Prithviraj marched out with infantry, cavalry and elephants, and that the sultan, about to leave Tabarhindah, turned to meet him at Tarain. Prithviraj was joined by allied rulers, among them Govind Rai Tomar, ruler of Delhi. Sirhindi places Govind Rai on an elephant at the front, which suggests he commanded the army, and several later chroniclers describe him as Prithviraj's brother.

The Ghurid horsemen opened the fighting by shooting arrows into the enemy centre. The Chahamana army answered with attacks from three directions and forced the invaders back. In Minhaj's account, Mu'izz ad-Din rode at Govind Rai and struck him in the mouth with a lance, knocking out two teeth, but was himself seriously wounded in the upper arm by a javelin. Minhaj says the sultan would have been killed or taken had a young soldier not led his horse away. With their leader gone, the Ghurid troops lost heart and were routed.

Mu'izz ad-Din retreated to Ghazni but left a garrison in Tabarhindah. Prithviraj did not pursue him, perhaps because he did not wish to enter hostile territory, or because he underestimated his rival's resolve. Instead he besieged the fort and eventually took it. Later accounts put the garrison at 2,000 men under Zia ud-Din Tulaki and say it held out for thirteen months, while the sultan raised a new army, reported as 120,000 strong. The same tradition credits Prithviraj with 100,000 cavalry at the first battle. Such medieval figures should be treated with caution.

The first battle is remembered as Prithviraj's great success against the Ghurids, but its consequences were reversed when the two rulers met again at Tarain. The episode illustrates how heavily the history of the period depends on chronicles composed long afterwards and coloured by the loyalties of their authors.

Our 1100 map shows the region around Tarain divided among Hindu kingdoms, before the Ghurid advance. The 1200 map, drawn after the two battles, shows the same area within the Delhi Sultanate.