at the courts of Anhilwara. The lieutenants of Shihābu-d-din disturbed the close of Kumarapal’s reign; and his successor, Balo Muldeo, closed this dynasty in S. 1284 (A.D. 1228), when a new dynasty, called the Vaghela (descendants of Siddharaja) under Bīsaldeo, succeeded.[2.7.81] The dilapidations from religious persecution were repaired; Somnath, renowned as Delphos of old, rose from its ruins, and the kingdom of the Balakaraes was attaining its pristine magnificence, when, under the fourth prince, Karandeva, the angel of destruction appeared in the shape of Alau-d-din, and the kingdom of Anhilwara was annihilated. The lieutenants of the Tatar despot of Delhi let loose the spirit of intolerance and avarice on the rich cities and fertile plains of Gujarat and Saurashtra. In contempt of their faith, the altar of an Islamite Darvesh was placed in contact with the shrine of Adinath, on the [99] most accessible of their sacred mounts:[2.7.82] the statues of Buddha [the Jain Tirthankaras] were thrown down, and the books containing the mysteries of their faith suffered the same fate as the Alexandrian library. The walls of Anhilwara were demolished; its foundations excavated, and again filled up with the fragments of their ancient temples.[2.7.83] The remnants of the Solanki dynasty were scattered over the land, and this portion of India remained for upwards of a century without any paramount head, until, by a singular dispensation of Providence, its splendour was renovated, and its foundations rebuilt, by an adventurer of the same race from which the Agnikulas were originally converts, though Saharan the Tak hid his name and his tribe under his new epithet of Zafar Khan, and as Muzaffar ascended the throne of Gujarat, which he left to his son. This son was Ahmad, who founded Ahmadabad, whose most splendid edifices were built from the ancient cities around it.[2.7.84] =Bāghels.=—Though the stem of the Solankis was thus uprooted, yet was it not before many of its branches (Sakha), like their own indigenous bar-tree, had fixed themselves in other soils. The most conspicuous of these is the Baghela[2.7.85] family, which gave its name to an entire division of Hindustan; and Baghelkhand has now been ruled for many centuries by the descendants of Siddharaja. Besides Bandhugarh, there are minor chieftainships still in Gujarat of the Baghela tribe. Of these, Pethapur and Tharad are the most conspicuous. One of the chieftains of the second class in Mewar is a Solanki, and traces his line immediately from Siddharaja: this is the chief of Rupnagar,[2.7.86] whose stronghold commands one of the passes leading to Marwar, and whose family annals would furnish a fine picture of the state of border-feuds. Few of them, till of late years, have died natural deaths. The Solanki is divided into sixteen branches [100].