The Sikhs and The Kangra Hill States [1469-1846 A.D.]

Contents: Preface. Acknowledgement. 1. Himalayan tribes. 2. Trigarta and adjoining hill states. 3. The Sikh Gurus, Banda Bahadur and the hill states. 4. Sikh power and the hill states. 5. Ranjit Singh\'s dominion over the hills. 6. Historical Sikh shrines in the hills. 7. Kangra Art and the Sikh Culture. Appendices: i. The Sikh Gurus. ii. Certain basic religious institutions of Sikh faith. iii. Lahore Durbar Calendar of important events and edicts relating to tributary hill states 1831-1839 A.D. iv. Select glossary of Sikh religious terms. Select bibliography. Index.

"The hills from which rivers Satluj and Ravi flow, a remarkable feature which Sir Lepell Griffin (The Rajas of the Punjab [1870]) noted with admiration was the pedigree of the chiefs which stretched back in unbroken succession for several thousand years. In a powerful and moving language he has commented:

"Before the Mohammad, God intoxicated shattered the idols of Arabia, before the founder of the Christian Faith gathered his few disciples by the lake of Galilee, the little Rajput principalities were existing in their quiet valleys; and when the day arrives that the name of England shall be no more a power in Hindustan, but only a vaguer memory, one leaf of her long and wondrous story, the Rajputs will still be ruling the ancient valleys and tracing their ancestry to the sun."

The prophecy though did not come true. Much before the English had left the shores of India, The Kangra princely order sprung from the root stock of Katoch House had disappeared from the face of the Punjab province. Though in the prime of its glory under Maharaja Sansar Chand [1775-1823], Kangra, once an unrivalled regime, over-lord of all the neighbouring princely hill states, at long last was vanquished by Ranjit Singh the Maharaja of Punjab.

How did the who great powers of Punjab - the Hill Rajas and the Sikhs -- co-existed and interacted during the closing years of the eighteenth century and upto the first half of nineteenth century has been chronicled by the author in a lucid and coherent manner. The book unravels an interesting chapter of the history of Himachal Pradesh, which so far has received little attention from its historians." (jacket)