King
Khadgal Sen of Khandela was blessed with a son, Sujankunwar, after a
yagnya was performed. The rishis (priests) who did the yagnya warned
the king that this son of his should not be allowed to go East. When
Sujankunwar grew he inherited the kingdom. King Khadgal Sen
himself retired.
It
was this time when the growth of Jainism was in full swing.
Sujankunwar also baptised himself in Jainism and started opposing
yagnyas. Not heeding the advice of the priests he proceeded with his
72 Umraons towards east. Seeing the priests performing yagnya
Sujankunwar asked his Umraons to disturb it. For this deed of theirs
the priests made them all in statues. On hearing the news Khadgal
Sen along with his queens killed themselves. Wife of Sujankunwar
Chandrawati, along with the wives of all the Umraons went to the
place where their husbands were made into statues. They pleaded with
the priests to reconvert their husbands to live form. The priests
showed their inability to take back the curse. They, however,
advised these women to pray with Lord Shiva and Parvatiji for
bringing these statues back to life. Lord Shiva and Parvatiji were
impressed by the prayers and gave life to all the statues. They were
also asked to leave their Kshatriya tradition and convert to
Vaisyas.
The
priests on whose curse the Umraons were made into statues were
Parashar (Pareek), Dadhichi (Dahiya), Gautam (Gurjar Gaud), Khandik
(Khandelwal), Sukumarg (Sukuwal) and Sarsur
(Sarswat).
The
priests asked the Lord as to how their yagnyas would materialise and
who will save them from the plunderers. The Lord asked them that
each of the six priests should take 12 Umraons as their disciples
and these Umraons will keep on giving you alms. The descendent of
these 72 Vaisya families will always be with you to take
care.
From
then these 72 families were called Maheshwaris taking the name from
Lord Mahesh or Lord Shiva. These 72 families with their surnames
(khaps) formed the primary Maheshwari list of
surnames. Later their were subdivisions and from amongst these
72 surnames their were more sub-surnames
(up-khaps). It was in this way that with the blessing of
Lord Mahesh the formation of Maheshwaris was done on the ninth day
of the Jaishtha month. Later 5 more families from the Kshatriyas
joined the
Maheshwaris. |
