Kalapahad

Kalapahada (in Odia language) or Kala Pahar was a Muslim General of the Bengal Sultanate under the reigning Karrani Dynasty, who is mentioned in the Mughal Empire records as the one who invaded Puri Jagannatha Temple with his army and also destroyed the Konark Sun temple. As per few historians his original name was Kalachand Ray, who was a pious Vaishnava Brahmin from Bhurshut in Bengal. Later He fell in love with Sultan's daughter, Gulnaz and converted to Islam for marriage.[1][2][3] He is said to be the Muslim general under whose orders the Kamakhya Temple in Guwahati, Assam was razed and destroyed. But some Historians debate that it was not Kalapahar & his army but Hussein Shah during 1498-1506 A.D. They are also notoriously related to the partly destruction of Sun Temple Konark. However, the general Kalapahad and his army may not have been only ones entirely responsible. Other texts state that the temple was sacked several times by Muslim armies between the 15th and 17th centuries.[4][5] Islamic texts describing the raids of Kalapahar mention his army's first attempt to destroy the temple in 1565, but they failed. They inflicted only minor damage and carried away the copper kalasa.[5]

Military Campaigns

As narrated by Sujan Bhattacharyya, Mukunda Deva, the Hindu king of Kalinga (Odisha) was an ally of the Mughal emperor Akbar and a foe of the Sultan of Bengal. Gajapati and the Sultan had two wars, the first he won, the second he lost. Kalapahad took part in both the battles but on either side. In the first war he was the supreme commander of the combined forces of Kalinga and Bhurishrestha, the independent Hindu kingdom of Bengal. Subsequently he changed his belief after his marriage to the Princess of Bengal, Gulnaaz, the daughter of Sulaiman Karanni, the Sultan of Bengal, change of faith being the pre-condition marriage set by the Sultan and assumed the name kalapahad. The general of the Bengal Sultanate army was Kalapahad, who after the second war sacked major towns and religious places of the kingdom in 1568, which form the contemporaneous Indian state of Odisha.[6] According to Shamsuddin Ahmed in the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh, Sultan Sulaiman sent his army into Odisha to expand his Sultanate under the command of his son "Bayazid and general Kalapahar alias Raju". They defeated and killed the king Mukund-Dev. The general Kalapahar led a contingent deep into the kingdom to subjugate it.[7]

Konark Sun Temple

Kalapahad has been linked to repeated attacks and the damage of the Konark Sun Temple. He was the general of Bengal Sultan Sulaiman Khan Karrani. According to Afsanah-i-Shahan of Shaikh Kabir Batini, he was a Batini Afghan.[8] According to the history of Odisha, Kalapahad invaded Odisha in 1568. He damaged the Konark Sun Temple, as well as a number of Hindu temples in Odisha. The Madala Panji of Puri Jagannath temple describes how Kalapahad attacked Odisha in 1568.

Other campaigns

Kalapahad led the Sultanate army in other wars. According to Shamsuddin Ahmed, he fought the Cooch Behar army after the Koch king had attacked the Sultanate. He overwhelmed Sukladhwaja, held him prisoner and then besieged the capital of Cooch Behar, states Ahmed.[7] However, fearing an attack from the Mughal armies, the Sultan Sulaiman Karrani ordered Kalapahad to withdraw from Cooch Behar and then restored the Sukladhwaja back to power in Cooch Behar.[7]

In 1575, the Sultan's son Bayazid was treacherously murdered. The Afghan leaders like "Junaid, Qutlu Khan and Kalapahar", states Ahmed, rallied around Daud Karrani who ascended to the throne of the Bengal Sultanate.[9] Daud and his supporters were defeated at Rajmahal in July 1576.[9]

Death

After attacking Puri and Konark temples, Kalapahad set out to destroy Samaleswari temple in Sambalpur. Legend has it that Kalapahad had his camp along with his soldiers near Sambalpur, in a ground. It is said that, Goddess Samleswari, patron Goddess of Sambalpur and after whom the city is named, came in the form of a woman selling buttermilk. They purchased it, drank and died. Kalpahad was buried in Sambalpur, Odisha. Large number of tombs believed to be those of the dead soldiers of Kalapahar are located in a mango grove near Samaleswari College building on the bank of river Mahanadi in Odisha. In 2006 a nationalist Hindu group destroyed those tombs.[10][11]

Legacy

The term Kalapahad (or Black Mountain in English) has come to mean iconoclast among the Hindu population in Bengal, East and Northeast India.[12] It has also been used derogatorily against Bengali Muslims and other Muslims of the eastern part of the subcontinent. In March 2021, the Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah referred to AIUDF leader Badruddin Ajmal as Kalapahad and as an infiltrator.[13]

See also

References
  1. Mahendra Narayan Behera (2003). Brownstudy on Heathenland: A Book on Indology. University Press of America. pp. 146–147. ISBN 978-0-7618-2652-1.
  2. Thomas Donaldson (2005). Konark. Oxford University Press. pp. 16–26. ISBN 978-0-19-567591-7.
  3. "Konarak, Conservation". Archaeological Survey of India. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  4. Konark: India, Encyclopaedia Britannica
  5. N. S. Ramaswami (1971). Indian Monuments. Abhinav. pp. 161–163. ISBN 978-0-89684-091-1.
  6. Pathak, Durga Prashad (1989). Palm leaf etchings of Orissa. Abhinav Publications. p. 4. ISBN 9788170172482. Retrieved 2010-08-19.
  7. Ahmed, ABM Shamsuddin (2012). "Sulaiman Karrani". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
  8. K.S. Behera Archived 2009-04-10 at the Wayback Machine, "Gloom and Bloom: The Case of Jagannatha Temples in Midnapore District"
  9. Ahmed, ABM Shamsuddin (2012). "Daud Khan Karrani". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
  10. "10 interesting facts about kala Pahada | OdiaLive". 2015-11-08. Retrieved 2021-12-02.
  11. "Sambalpur History, History of Sambalpur, Sambalpur City Information :: Traveltill.com". Traveltill. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
  12. Accessible Dictionary, “কালাপাহাড়” Bengali-English, Government of Bangladesh
  13. "Rahul Baba is on Assam visit as a tourist: Amit Shah in Chirang". Deccan Herald. 31 March 2021.
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