The Prithviraj Raso (IAST: Pṛthvīrāja Rāso) is a Braj language epic poem about the life of Prithviraj Chauhan (reign. c. 1177–1192 CE). It is attributed to Chand Bardai, who according to the text, was a court poet of the king.
The earliest extant copy of the text dates back to the 16th century, although some scholars date its oldest version to the 13th century. By the 19th century, several interpolations and additions had been made to the original text under the patronage from Rajput rulers. The text now exists in four recensions. It contains a mixture of historical facts and imaginary legends, and is not considered historically reliable.
Authorship and date
According to tradition, the Prithviraj Raso was composed by Chand Bardai, Prithviraj's court poet (raj kavi), who accompanied the king in all his battles. The last canto, which narrates the death of Chand Bardai and Prithviraj, is said to have been composed by Chand Bardai's son Jalha (or Jalhan).
Most modern scholars do not consider Prithviraj Raso to have been composed during Prithviraj's time. The text's language points to a date much later than the 12th century, and its current recension mentions the 13th century King Samarsi (Samarsimha or Samar Singh), whom it anachronistically describes as a contemporary of Prithviraj. However, some scholars still believe that Chand Bardai was a historical court poet of Prithviraj, and he composed a text that forms the basis of the present version of Prithviraj Raso.
The earliest extant manuscript of Prithviraj Raso, discovered at Dharanojwali village of Gujarat, is dated 1610. This manuscript contains the shortest recension of the text, and its language is more archaic than the one found in the other 17th century manuscripts. This suggests that the shortest recension most probably composed sometime before 1600, towards the end of the 16th century.
Scholars such as Narottamdas swami, Namvar Singh, and Cynthia Talbot date the text to the 16th century, during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605). This theory is based on the fact that two narratives written during c. 1587-1597 are essentially summaries of the Prithviraj Raso plot: these narratives are contained in the Persian language text Ain-i-Akbari and the Sanskrit language text Surjana-charita. Some episodes contained in Prithviraj Raso (such as the existence of a minister called Kaymas or Prithviraj's defeat by the Ghurid king) are mentioned in the earlier texts, but these earlier texts do not follow the storyline of the Prithviraj Raso. For example, the 15th century text Hammira Mahakavya, which appears to have been written for a Chauhan patron, does not mention the heroic episodes contained in the Prithviraj Raso. If such episodes were known during the 15th century, the author of Hammira Mahakavya would not have failed to mention them. This suggests that the Prithiviraj Raso narratives did not exist in the 15th century in oral form, as speculated by some writers.
Recensions
The oldest extant recension of Prithviraj Raso is from the 16th century. It exists in form a manuscript copied in 1610, for a grandson of Kalyanmal, the Rathore ruler of Bikaner. Scholars, such as Cynthia Talbot, Narottamdas Swami and Namwar Singh date the text to the 16th century, during the reign of Akbar. However Rima Hooja and other scholars of Rajasthan claims the core to have been written in Lata Apabhramsha (also called Latiya Apabhramsha) language and style typical of 12th and 13th centuries.
Since the 16th century, the size of the text has expanded greatly because of several interpolations and additions, resulting in multiple recensions. Only a small portion of the existing recensions is likely to have been part of the original version. A small 1300-stanza manuscript in Bikaner is closest to the original text. The longest available version is the Udaipur (Mewar) manuscript, which is an epic with 16,306 stanzas.
Modern scholars categorize the various recensions of Prithviraj Raso into four broad categories, represented by the following editions: