According to medieval legends, there are four Agnivanshi clans: Chauhans (Chahamanas), Pratihar (Pratiharas), Parmars (Paramaras) and Solankis (Chaulukyas).
Its version of the legend is as follows:[2] On Mount Arbuda (Abu), the priest of Ikshvaku royal house (Vashistha) once made a sacred grove.
The grateful owner of the cow named this hero "Paramara" ("slayer of the enemy"), and gave him the power to rule the entire earth.
[3] The legend is not mentioned in earlier Paramara inscriptions (such as the Harsola copper plates) or literary works (such as Halayudha's Mritasanjivani).
[4][5] By this time, all of the Paramaras' neighbouring dynasties claimed descent from mythical heroes or gods: the Pratiharas from Lakshmana, the Chahamanas (Chauhans) from Surya (Sun), the Chaulukyas from Brahma's water pot (chaluka), and the Chandelas from Chandra (Moon).
According to it, Vasistha, in a dispute over Kamadhenu, created the ancient non-Aryan tribes of the Sakas, Pahlavas, and Kambojas to fight Visvamitra.
It goes like this:[9][10] One day, Agastya, Gautama, Vashistha, Vishwamitra and other great sages started a major sacrificial ceremony on Arbuda (Mount Abu).
Scholars such as Dasharatha Sharma and C. V. Vaidya, who analyzed the earliest available copies of Prithviraj Raso, concluded that its original recension did not contain this legend at all.
[13] Adaptions of the Prithviraj Raso legend occur in later works written under the patronage of the various Chauhan dynasties.
One notable adaption is found in Hammira Raso (1728), which describes the life of Hammira-deva, the Chauhan king of Ranthambore.
The absence of any warriors led to a dark age, where rakshasas (demons) increased in number, Vedas came to be trampled under feet, and Hinduism was forgotten.
The goddess protected Chohan from all dangers: every time he fell at her feet, his strength doubled and he was able to slay the demons.
[17] Dvyasraya-Mahakavya, an account of the Chaulukya dynasty (Solankis) by Hemachandra (c. 1088–1173), mentions the Agnikula legend while describing the origin of the Paramaras.
The recital of the Vedic mantras produced four Kshatriya heroes: Samavedin Paramara, Yajurvedin Chahumana (Chauhan), Trivedin Chalukya and Atharvavedin Parihara (Pratihara).
[20][7] Abu'l Fazl mentions another variation of the legend in his Ain-i-Akbari: In 761 BCE, a sage called Mahabaha kindled a flame and established a fire temple, which started attracting several devotees.
The fire temple devotees then prayed to seek a hero who would overthrow Buddhism and restore their traditional faith.
This hero, called Dhananjaya (or Dhanji), attained power in a short time and restored the Brahminical rites.
In this version, the stolen cow (called "Nandini") retaliates by creating the various mleccha tribes from different parts of her body.
[25] He speculated that the Agnivashi Rajputs, who were of "good-stature and fair", could not have descended from the "dark, diminutive and ill-favoured" aboriginal natives of India.
[26] A. M. T. Jackson proposed a similar theory, but argued that the Rajputs had originated from Gurjars, who according to him, came to India as part of invading hordes.
The basis for his theory was the Agnivanshi myth, and the prevalence of surnames such as Pavar (Parmar) and Chavan (Chauhan) among Gurjars.
The Pratisarga-Parvan of Bhavishya Purana mentions a legend according to which the Brahmins destroyed the mlecchas by pulling them into a sacrificial fire pit (rather than creating them from it).
[41] Hiltebeitel further theorises that the Agnikula myth is of south Indian origin,[42] and may have been transmitted to northern India by the feudatories of the Pallavas and the Chalukyas.
According to a legend in this text, after the destruction of the Chola and the Pandya capitals (the latter by agni or fire), it is the Chera king who redeems the royals by establishing the worship of Kannagi.
Before the popularisation of the Agnikula myth, both these dynasties claimed origin from Brahma's chaluka (folded palm or water-pot).
The Guhilot Rajputs of Mewar as well as the Chaulukyas of Gujarat are known to have employed Brahmins from Deccan for fabricating their myths of origin.
[42] According to K. N. Seth, the foreign-origin theory is weakened by the fact that the Agnikula legend is not mentioned in the earliest of the Paramara records (such as the Harsola copper plates).