How Bhojpal became Bhopal

How Bhojpal became Bhopal (Organiser, 21-3-2010); One cannot restrain oneself from appreciating the recent Varsha Pratipada Special issue of Organiser. The editorial is very thought provoking and compels to read it again and again. The cover story by Shri Sangeet Verma is very informative about the great Emperor of Malwa, Bhoj Parmar, but one great factual blunder mars the very essence of it. This blunder relates to Syed Salar Masood. Salar Masood was not the son of Mahmood Ghaznavi, but the son of his sister. This sister was married to Syed Salar Sahu. Both father (Syed Salar Sahu) and son (Syed Salar Masood) were sent on an expedition to destroy the temples of Kashi and Ayodhya. They first came to Satarikh (old name Saptarishi) and established their centre of expedition there. Syed Salar Masood proceeded to attack Ayodhya via Zaidpur, Baba Bazar, Rudauli, but on reaching Raunahi he suddenly changed his mind and moulded his army of 1,20,000 marauders towards Brahmarchi, the present-day Bahraich in UP. The then king of Shrawasti, Suheldev was already alert with his army and the armies of other adjacent kings and challenged Masood near the river Kutila, a few kilometres east of Bahraich. At that time, Bahraich was also a very important place of pilgrimage, as there stood an old and magnificent temple of Sun God, named Balark Temple. It was a temple of Morning Sun, as the golden rays of the rising Sun first touched the feet of the deity. There was a bauli (which still exists, though in a very dilapidated condition) and a vast tank named Surya Kund. Suheldev, a Bharshiva Kshatriya king, defeated and killed Salar Masood. Later on, Firoz Shah Tughlaq revenged the defeat of Salar Masood and demolished the Balark Temple and converted the very shrine into the so-called majar of Salar Masood and devastated all the Bharshiva forts and fortresses and temples ruthlessly. Still the ruins of those forts are scattered from Barabanki, Raibareilly, Bahraich to Mirzapur in the easternmost UP and these are called the "Monds of Bhars".

Salar Masood’s father Syed Salar Sahu’s expedition also failed miserably and he was also sent to hell by Hindu armies of the local rulers. Where was he annihilated along with his large army is not available in the pages of history, but it is a cynch that he could not reach Kashi and was killed in the way. His grave is in a Sun Temple at Satarikh (Barabanki). His fake majar is now being propagated as "Budhe Baba ki Majar". It may be possible that Syed Salar Sahu, not Syed Salar Masood, his son, might have been defeated and killed by Bhoj. The learned author of the article needs to make further research in this regard just to correct the facts of the history of that period.