Raja Goja Chand and His Four Sons: Roots of the Chib, Chahi and Domal Lines

Raja Goja Chand (راجہ گوجا چند), also called Gorpal or Gopal Chand and remembered as “Goja Pir”, was the Hindu raja of Bhimber whose son became Raja Shadab Khan, revered as Baba Shadi Shaheed. The oldest Chib history, Thakur Major Singh’s Tarikh-e-Chibhal (c. 1926), records him only as No. 464 in the royal line. The 1997 history by Raja Muhammad Iftikhar Ali Khan and Chibhal Nama (c. 2023) add that he ruled from Chowki Bandi near Samahni, in today’s Azad Jammu and Kashmir, where his samadh is still revered, and give him four sons, from whom the Chibs of Bhimber, the Chibs of Chahi and Pothi Jang Khan and the Domal of Poonch descend.

Six rajas after Chib Chand

Thakur Major Singh’s Tarikh-e-Chibhal (c. 1926), the oldest written history of the clan, knows Goja Chand only as a name in a numbered list: the Katoch line of Kangra runs on through Raja Chib Chand, No. 458, and five rajas after him to Raja Goja Chand, No. 464, and his successor Raja Dharam Chand, the raja known to Muslims as Shadab Khan and, Major Singh says, the seventh after Chib Chand (Major Singh (c. 1926), pp. 18–19, 26). The 1997 history names the five as Kalas, Rupal, Rajan, Pheri and Shanti Chand, the last also called Sasi Chand (reading uncertain), and makes Gorpal Chand the sixth raja of Bhimber after the founder, the seventh ruler of the line if the founder is counted (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), pp. 68, 81, 388). Chibhal Nama (c. 2023) lists the same rajas, spelling two of them Ropal and Rachan, and puts Gorpal Chand “in the sixth generation” after Chib Chand (p. 53).

No dates for these reigns come with a stated source. Major Singh brings Chib Chand to Bhimber at the end of the thirteenth century Bikrami, about the 1240s AD, yet makes Goja Chand’s son a contemporary of Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi (r. 1517–1526), dates hard to reconcile across only seven reigns (pp. 21, 29). The 1997 history, which places Chib Chand’s accession early in the fifteenth century and Goja Chand’s son in Ibrahim Lodi’s time, points to the later fifteenth or early sixteenth century for Goja Chand. Chibhal Nama’s own, unsourced table of rulers gives him 1512 to 1526 (p. 241). All three histories trace the Chib Rajputs, Muslim and Hindu, back to him.

Raja Goja Chand at Chowki Bandi

Major Singh says nothing of Goja Chand’s reign. The 1997 history says that Raja Goja Chand made his capital at Chowki Bandi, a pleasant and healthy spot three miles west of Samahni, in today’s Tehsil Samahni of District Bhimber, and remembers him as a ruler who cared for the welfare of ordinary people. At his capital he had solid rock cut away to build masonry baolis, or step-wells, which the book calls fine examples of building and stone-carving, and he built palaces that have since fallen into ruin. He also laid out three highways across his state: one running west from Chowki to Puna, a second running east to Khawlian, and a third running north to Naushera from Sa’dabad. The roads, the book says, made travel and transport much easier for his subjects (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), p. 68).

Chibhal Nama (c. 2023) repeats this almost word for word, as it repeats much of the 1997 book, so here it is a copy rather than a second witness (see Chibhal Nama, chapter by chapter). It adds local detail: the capital lay “in the area of Chowki and Bandi”; the eastern road ran to Kahawliyan, the Chib mandi village also written Khawaliyan or Ghawaliyan (see Mandi Ghawaliyan); and Sa’dabad, where the northern road began, lies in today’s Bandala (pp. 53, 79).

Maulvi Zain-ul-Abidin of Samahni, whose manuscript history the 1997 book quotes, puts it a little differently. In his account the seat of Gopal Chand and of his son Shadab Khan remained Bhimber, but the scorching heat of the plains drove them to make the cool Samahni valley their summer capital, and a building in the style of a samadh, known as Goja Khan Dhara, still stands at Chowki (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), pp. 117–118). For the rulers who came after him, see The Rajas of Bhimber.

The samadh of Goja Pir

Raja Goja Chand died at Chowki Bandi, says the 1997 history, and his samadh, the memorial built where a Hindu ruler was cremated, still stands in the village of Chowki, Tehsil Samahni. Local people held it in such reverence that the samadh itself came to be called Goja Pir, “Goja the saint” (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), pp. 68, 81). The book’s photograph shows a tall stone structure with a pointed, pyramid-like top, dark against the sky, beside the Samahni–Mirpur road, with hills behind it (p. 97). Chibhal Nama is more exact about the place: Goja Pir died at Bandi, now a village of Union Council Chowki, and his samadhi stands at the beginning of the village, on the way from Chowki bazaar to Chowki Graan (pp. 53–54).

A second memorial grew up elsewhere. After a long time, the 1997 history relates, the Chib Rajputs of Watala built a samadh for their ancestor in their own village, because Chowki was distant and hard to reach. This shrine stood a furlong south of Mohra Dhok, and when livestock went missing people made offerings there (p. 68); Chibhal Nama repeats the passage (p. 54). Watala, or Vatala, is the home of the Hindu Chibs who descend from Baba Shadi Shaheed’s grandson Raja Ghaggi Khan, described in The Hindu Chibs of Dewa Vatala. Yet their own historian, Major Singh, a Vatala man who describes his village’s shrines, among them those of the deified Bawa Tabali and of Pir Songa, says nothing of a samadh of Goja Chand there or at Chowki (Major Singh (c. 1926), pp. 40–41, 57). The tradition of the Chowki capital and the two samadhs therefore rests on the 1997 history, the Maulvi’s manuscript and the memorials themselves; Major Singh’s silence neither confirms nor refutes it.

Four sons, four lines

Major Singh’s chart passes straight from Goja Chand to Raja Dharam Chand and names no other son; in his book the clan descends through Dharam Chand’s own four sons (Major Singh (c. 1926), pp. 18–19, 35). The later histories give Goja Chand four sons and a dying wish: he told his heir, his eldest son Shadip Chand, to give each of his brothers a share of the state, and when Goja Chand died, Shadip Chand became ruler of Bhimber and did so (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), p. 69). Chibhal Nama tells the same story, with “an equal share” for each brother, and credits the dying wish to Major Singh’s book (pp. 54–55); it is not in the c. 1926 original, but it matches the 1997 history’s own narrative.

Shadip Chand: Raja Shadab Khan

The eldest son, whom the 1997 history calls Shadip Chand and Major Singh and Chibhal Nama call Dharam Chand, became the most famous of all. As Raja Shadab Khan, and after his death as Baba Shadi Shaheed, he is honoured as the common ancestor of the Chibhal, a great raja and, to his devotees, a saint (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), p. 81). The 1997 compiler holds that he had already embraced Islam in his father’s lifetime, on the advice of his spiritual guide Hazrat Piro Shah, but kept it secret until he himself became raja (p. 114); Major Singh held that the emperor converted him by force, and Chibhal Nama has him announce his faith at Sultan Ibrahim Lodi’s court (see Forced or Free?). His sons in the later books, Raja Bhom Khan, Raja Mal Khan and Raja Rupo Khan, founded the Chib lines of Bhimber, of Khari Kariali and of Barhang (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), p. 389; Chibhal Nama (c. 2023), pp. 68–69); Major Singh names four, Bhup Chand, Rup Chand, Mal Khan and Gul Muhammad Khan (Major Singh (c. 1926), p. 35).

Bel Chand: Raja Dal Khan

The second son, Bel Chand, known as Raja Dal Khan, received Beri Pattan and the country around it as his jagir. His relations with his elder brother grew steadily worse until they came to open war, and in one battle Dal Khan was killed at Raluh, near Samahni, where his memorial still stands; the older pages of the 1997 book call it “Dal Khan’s Chihani”, his cremation ground. He left no children, so his jagir was taken back into the state of Bhimber (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), pp. 69, 82). Elsewhere the compiler explains the quarrel: Dal Khan remained a Hindu and bitterly resented his brother’s conversion (p. 115). Chibhal Nama repeats the story without the motive, spelling the village Ramloh, and counts the killing among the feuds in which “brothers were killed by brothers” (Chibhal Nama (c. 2023), pp. 29, 55); Major Singh does not mention Dal Khan. The spot where he fell, a great rock venerated as Thal Pir, is the subject of Thal Pir: a War Between Brothers.

Chhel Chand: Raja Chhel Khan

The third son, Chhel Chand or Raja Chhel Khan, inherited Chahi, Pothi and other villages about fourteen miles north of Bhimber, and stayed on good terms with his eldest brother. The 1997 history names his two sons as Ismail Khan, known as Samlu Khan, and Pahlwan Khan, whose descendants live at Chahi and at Pothi Jang Khan (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), pp. 69, 82, 389). Chibhal Nama places Chahi in the Samahni area and Pothi in the Bhimber area, and calls the elder son Kalu Khan (Chibhal Nama (c. 2023), p. 55). Their story is told in Pothi Jang Khan and Chahi.

Thom Chand: Raja Dom Khan

The youngest, Thom Chand, known as Raja Dom Khan, was given the country east of Samahni but was not content with it, the 1997 history says. After several battles with his eldest brother he was defeated and left his homeland for Parawa Thakiala in Poonch, where he put down two rebellious local tribes, set up his own small state with its seat at a place he called Rajdhani, and embraced Islam at the hand of a dervish, Pir Fazil Shah. From him the Domal tribe arose, whose leaders in the twentieth century included Sardar Fateh Muhammad Khan Karelvi and Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), pp. 70, 82). Chibhal Nama calls him Parab Chand and makes him, for a time, raja of Bhimber in his brother’s place; see The Domal of Poonch.

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• Raja Chib ChandThe Katoch prince who founded the Chib dynasty
• Baba Shadi ShaheedRuler, healer and martyr
• Thal PirRaja Shadab Khan, Raja Dal Khan and a war between brothers
• The Domal of PoonchDescendants of Raja Dom Khan
• Pothi Jang Khan and ChahiThe line of Raja Chhel Khan
• The Samahni ChibsRaja Hakim Khan, Raj Bai and the Kot of Samahni