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In Indian culture, the Agnivanshi are people who claim descent from Agni, the Vedic god of fire. The Agnivanshi lineage is one of the lineages among the Rajput clans, the others being the Suryavansha (descended from Surya, the sun god) and the Chandravanshi (descended from Chandra, the moon god). According to medieval legends, there are four Agnivanshi clans: Chauhan Dynasty (Chahamanas), Pratihar (Pratiharas), Parmars (Paramaras) and Solankis (Chaulukyas).
Apart from Rajputs, several other Indian communities and dynasties have legends of fire-born ancestry. Alf Hiltebeitel theorises that the fire-lineage legends signify a new class of Kshatriya warriors, as opposed to the earlier warriors who claimed descent from the solar dynasty and lunar dynasty lineages mentioned in the ancient texts. Among the clans now known as the Rajputs, the legend might have been invented by Padmagupta, a 10th-century court poet of the Paramara dynasty. His Nava-sahasanka-charita is the earliest source claiming an Agnivanshi origin for the Paramaras. He might have been motivated by the fact that the Paramaras were the only royal family in their region without a mythical account of heroic or divine origin. The 16th century Rajput bards might have extended the legend to include other imperial dynasties, in order to foster Rajput unity against Muslims.
Padmagupta's Nava-sahasanka-charita is based on the life of Sindhuraja, but is of little historical value. The legend is not mentioned in earlier Paramara inscriptions (such as the Harsola copper plates) or literary works (such as Halayudha's Mritasanjivani). Therefore, it appears that Padmagupta invented the legend in late 10th century. By this time, all of the Paramaras' neighbouring dynasties claimed descent from mythical heroes or gods: the Pratiharas from Lakshmana, the Chahamanas (Chauhans) from Surya (Sun), the Chaulukyas from Brahma's water pot ( chaluka), and the from Chandra (Moon). The Paramaras were the only ones without a legend of mythical origin. This might have motivated Padmagupta to invent a new legend with Sindhuraja's approval. R.K. Gupta and S.R. Bakshi opine that Parmara legend is based on an earlier legend narrated in the Ramayana. According to it, Vasistha, in a dispute over Kamadhenu, created the ancient non-Aryan tribes of the Sakas, Pahlavas, and Kambojas to fight Visvamitra.
The post-Sindhuraja Paramara inscriptions and literary works widely mention the Agnikula myth. The Paramara inscriptions which mention this legend include the Udaipur Prashasti inscription, the Nagpur stone inscription, the Vasantagarh inscription, the Arthuna inscription of Chamundaraja, the Neminath Jain temple inscription, the Donagaragrama inscription, the Patnarayan inscription and the Jainad inscription. Tilaka-Manjari by Dhanapala, a contemporary of the Paramara king Bhoja, also supports this account. Some of the later inscriptions mention the name the dynasty's progenitor as "Dhumaraja" (smoke-king) instead of "Paramara".
Some recensions of Prithviraj Raso, an epic poem by Chand Bardai, contain a legend similar to the Paramara legend. However, this version does not present the sages Vashistha and Vishwamitra as rivals. It goes like this:
Prithviraj Raso is the earliest source that includes four different Rajput dynasties (not just the Paramaras) in this legend. Scholars such as Dasharatha Sharma and C. V. Vaidya, who analyzed the earliest available copies of Prithviraj Raso, concluded that its original recension did not contain this legend at all. The earliest extant copy of Prithviraj Raso, dated to 15th century, contains only one sentence regarding the origin of Chauhan dynasty: it states that Manik Rai was the first valiant Chauhan, and he was born from Brahma's sacrifice. R. B. Singh believes that the 16th century poets came up with the legend to foster Rajput unity against the Mughal Emperor emperor Akbar.
Adaptions of the Prithviraj Raso legend occur in later works written under the patronage of the various Chauhan dynasties. One notable adaption is found in Hammira Raso (1728), which describes the life of Hammira-deva, the Chauhan king of Ranthambore. It was composed by Jodharaja, a court poet of prince Chandrabhana of Neemrana. Its version of the legend is as follows:
A slight variation occurs in the writings of Suryamal Misran, the court poet of Bundi State. In this version, the various gods create the four heroes on Vashistha's request. According to the bardic tale of the Khilchipur State clan of Chauhans, the Puwar (Paramara) was born from Shiva's essence; the Solankhi (Solanki) or Chaluk Rao (Chaulukya) was born from Brahma's essence; the Pariyar (Parihar) was born from Devi's essence; and the Chahuvan (Chauhan) was born from the Agni. The myth also appears with some variations in the Sisana inscription of the Chauhans of Bedla, and the Nainsi ri Khyat.
The Bhavishya Purana, some of whose portions date as late as the 19th century, also contains the legend with some variations. In this version, the Kanyakubja Brahmins conducted a sacrifice on Mount Abu to appease Brahma. The recital of the Vedas mantras produced four Kshatriya heroes: Samaveda Paramara, Yajurvedin Chahumana (Chauhan), Trivedin Chalukya and Atharvaveda Parihara (Pratihara).
Abu'l Fazl mentions another variation of the legend in his Ain-i-Akbari: In 761 BCE, a sage called Mahabaha kindled a flame and established a fire temple, which started attracting several devotees. Later, the Buddhism, unhappy with these Brahmanism rites, managed to get an order prohibiting this style of worship. The fire temple devotees then prayed to seek a hero who would overthrow Buddhism and restore their traditional faith. The "Supreme Justice" then conjured a hero from the now-cold fire temple. This hero, called Dhananjaya (or Dhanji), attained power in a short time and restored the Brahminical rites. He came to Malwa from Deccan, and established a government there. When his fifth-generation descendant Putaraja died childless, the nobles elected one Aditya Ponwar as his successor. The Paramara dynasty descended from Ponwar.
Some British India historians interpreted the Agnikula myth to suggest a foreign origin for the Agnivanshi Rajputs. According to this theory, the foreign ancestors of these Rajputs came to India after the decline of the Gupta Empire around 5th century. They were admitted in the Hindu caste system after performing a fire ritual. James Tod, who relied on bardic legends, was the first to propose this theory. He speculated that the Agnivashi Rajputs, who were of "good-stature and fair", could not have descended from the "dark, diminutive and ill-favoured" aboriginal natives of India. He proposed that their ancestors were Scythians and other groups residing beyond the Hindu Kush mountains. A. M. T. Jackson proposed a similar theory, but argued that the Rajputs had originated from , who according to him, came to India as part of invading hordes. The basis for his theory was the Agnivanshi myth, and the prevalence of surnames such as Pavar (Parmar) and Chavan (Chauhan) among Gurjars. The theory was further supported by other British scholars as well as some Indian scholars, such as D. R. Bhandarkar. William Crooke theorised that the demons referred to in the Agnikula legend were Buddhist rivals of the Brahmins. He argued that the Kshatriya descent was based on status rather than descent, and therefore conducted a purification or initiation fire ritual to raise the status of foreign warriors who helped them repress the Buddhists.
The foreign-origin theory has been criticised by several later scholars. Alf Hiltebeitel states that the colonial historians saw the foreign-origin theory as a way of justifying their own colonial invasion. R. B. Singh criticises Indian supporters of the theory for having failed to see the "subtle game" of the colonial historians.
Hiltebeitel argues that the Ramayana story cannot be the origin of the Agnikula myth, because it has nothing to do with birth from fire. There are other mythological legends involving sages and birth of warriors, which do not support the foreign-origin theory. For example, the Ramayana also mentions that Vashistha and Rishyasringa performed a ceremony that resulted in the birth of Rama and his three brothers. The Pratisarga-Parvan of Bhavishya Purana mentions a legend according to which the Brahmins destroyed the mlecchas by pulling them into a sacrificial fire pit (rather than creating them from it). Besides, the fire-origin legend is not unique to the Rajputs. There are several south Indian legends of fire-born dynasties and communities:
Hiltebeitel notes that the common theme among all these "fire-origin" legends is not the theft of a cow: rather, it is the creation of a new order of Kshatriyas (as opposed to the traditional solar dynasty and lunar dynasty Kshatriyas mentioned in the ancient sources). Hiltebeitel further theorises that the Agnikula myth is of south Indian origin, and may have been transmitted to northern India by the feudatories of the Pallavas and the Chalukya dynasty. He suggests that the Tamil-language Silappatikaram legend is "an Agnikula myth waiting to be realized". It mentions solar and lunar ancestry of the Cholas and Pandyas respectively, but remains silent on the ancestry of the Cheras. According to a legend in this text, after the destruction of the Chola and the Pandya capitals (the latter by agni or fire), it is the Chera king who redeems the royals by establishing the worship of Kannagi. Besides the south Indian legends of fire-origin, Hiltebeitel also connects the (Solanki Rajputs) to the south Indian Chalukyas of Kalyani in his support. Before the popularisation of the Agnikula myth, both these dynasties claimed origin from Brahma's chaluka (folded palm or water-pot). The Guhilot Rajputs of Mewar as well as the Chaulukyas of Gujarat are known to have employed Brahmins from Deccan for fabricating their myths of origin. D. C. Sircar also suggested that the Paramara court poet Padmagupta might also have been a native of southern India. According to Paramara inscriptions, his patron Vakpati Munja had achieved military successes in southern India.
According to K. N. Seth, the foreign-origin theory is weakened by the fact that the Agnikula legend is not mentioned in the earliest of the Paramara records (such as the Harsola copper plates). Moreover, the earliest Paramara-era accounts do not mention the other Rajput clans as fire-born. The early Chauhan dynasties were centered around Ajmer-Pushkar region, and their association with Mount Abu is a later invention.
R. B. Singh argues that if the ancestors of Rajputs were the Indo-Aryan natives of north-western India, Tod's claim of stark differences between the appearances of the Scythians and the natives is misleading, as both the groups have Indo-European origins.
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