Jaunpur-Bhojpur War

The Jaunpur-Bhojpur war (also known as the Jaunpur-Ujjainiya war), refers to the conflict between the Jaunpur Sultanate and the Ujjainiya Rajput chiefs of the Bhojpur region of Bihar.[1]

Jaunpur-Bhojpur War
Date 1389 A.D. - 1489 A.D. Location Bhojpuri region Result Jaunpur Sultanate victory Ujjainiyas flee into the forest and lead a guerilla warfare resistance
Belligerents
Jaunpur Sultanate	Ujjainiyas of Bhojpur
Commanders and leaders
Malik Sarwar Mahmud Shah Sharqi Jamal Khan	Raja Harraj Santan Singh Raja Onkar Deva

Background

According to the seventeenth-century khyat which contains the history of the Ujjainiyas, noted that in 1389, the sultan of Jaunpur crossed the Karmanasa River and halted in Buxar which is a holy city in Hinduism and received a lot of pilgrims. His main motivation for advancing to this position was that he coveted control of the ferry of Chausa.[2] Upon their arrival, they noticed Brahmins performing prayers and rituals. They proceeded to disturb and interfere with the rituals which drew the attention of the Ujjainiyas. The Ujjainiyas were initially successful in driving the Jaunpur Sultanate out of the region however they later returned plundered the city, destroying the temples in the process.[3] The Ujjainiyas were then forced to flee into the forests.

Guerilla resistance

After their defeat, the Ujjainiyas fled into the hills and forests and continued to harass the forces of the Jaunpur Sultanate. After the death of Sultan Malik Sarwar in 1399, many Ujjainiyas felt it safe to return from living in the forest. However, for certain periods throughout the 1400s, many Ujjainiyas had to return to living in the forests.[4] By the latter half of the 1400s, many Ujjaniyas were paying tribute to the Jaunpur Sultan as the Ujjainiya chief at the time, Durlabh Deva had accepted their suzerainty. This continued until the Jaunpur Sultanate was eventually absorbed into the Lodi dynasty.[3]

See also

• Bengal Sultanate-Jaunpur Sultanate War

References

1. Md. Iftekhar Alam (1983). "The Relation of Bhojpur and Jaunpur (From 1389 A.D. to 1519 A.D". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 44: 213. JSTOR 44139839.
2. Muzaffar Alam; Sanjay Subrahmanyam (1998). The Mug̲h̲al State, 1526-1750. Oxford University Press. pp. 104–106. ISBN 978-0-19-563905-6.
3. Dirk H. A. Kolff (8 August 2002). Naukar, Rajput, and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market of Hindustan, 1450-1850. Cambridge University Press. pp. 60–62. ISBN 978-0-521-52305-9.
4. Rajiva Nain Prasad (1987). History of Bhojpur, 1320-1860 A.D. Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute.