When Brahma lit the sacrificial fire atop the Aravalli hills several Rajput clans came into existence. Among them were the Tomar Rajputs. That’s what mythology states, though logic would have one believe that they were probably the descendants of warlike tribes like the Huns and Scythians. Among them were the Tomars who ruled over the Delhi-Haryana region. The dynasty had many great rulers who resisted Mahmud of Ghazni and other invaders with great courage but ultimately the Tomars were conquered by the Chauhans who in turn were defeated by Mohammad Ghori. Ballads of the greatness of the Tomars are still sung in the rural areas, and among the more popular of these is the one of Surajpal, who ruled in the 10th Century. He was the son of Anang Pal II and his father loved him dearly. Since the belief was that these Rajputs had descended from the Sun God, he named his favourite son Surajpal and built Suraj Kund to commemorate the fact.
Sunday afternoon crowds at Suraj Kund now look in vain for the temple of the Sun God which once stood nearby and where Anang Pal and his son offered their customary sacrifices to their most cherished deity. Semi-circular in shape, Suraj Kund is said to mark the site of the legendary Indraprastha. But that is a controversial point for the Purana Qila legends too lay claim to that. Some say that Suraj Kund was built by Surajpal himself and others that it was a gift to his sister from their loving father. It’s a story 10 centuries old and so facts are hard to come by.
Brave and beautiful
The ballad recounts the valour of Surajpal, his romantic life and the beauty of his sister which put even the sun to shame, after the moon had tried its luck to attract her and failed. A stepped embankment runs the entire length of the semi-circular reservoir which impounds the rain water from the hills. Imagine Surajpal sitting with one of his wives there when the sawan clouds brought torrents of rain and thunder and lightning. Or think of the princess, his sister, all wet like a flower that had been soaked too much by the fickle badaria (sudden shower).
The fame of the two was such that Feroz Shah Tughlaq, who ruled some 400 years later, decided to restore Suraj Kund to some of its pristine glory by wide-ranging repairs and alterations. He even built a pavilion at the site of the fabled sun temple and had lime paste poured over the embankment, so that it holds fast even now. People who go to bathe at the Kund during the solar and lunar eclipses and other religious occasions have reason to thank a Muslim ruler for preserving the site of his Hindu predecessor.
But Suraj Kund is facing a threat again — from pollution. It needs another benefactor to protect it from the latest threat so that the living ballad of Surajpal and his beautiful sister is preserved for posterity. To see “old palaces and towers quivering beneath the wave’s intenser day”, for Suraj Kund is surely another Baiae’s Bay as portrayed by John Keats.
According to Percival Spear, writing for his students in the 1930s, “This is the longest excursion which we shall take from Delhi. You have to walk some distance and most of the country is bare of trees and rocky. So it is best to go to Suraj Kund in December or January when the weather is cold.
A child artiste performing at the Mela
“There are two ways of reaching Suraj Kund. The first is to go to Tughlaqabad station by the B.B. & C.I. Railway. Or else you can go to Badarpur along the Mathura road. From there you must walk for about two miles across open country. There is a village about half way where they will direct you. Towards the end you come to rocky country, and then suddenly you will come to a small valley with a bund across it. On the other side is a charming jhil. Over the hill on the right-hand side of the valley is the tank of Suraj Kund, the other way is this: You go by road to Tughlaqabad. On the side nearest Badarpur is a little temple and dharmshala in a hollow. Here you will see a large signpost – TO SURAJ KUND. A path leads for about two miles straight to the great tank. This is now well marked out so that you need no guide. There are always some country people at the temple if you want help of any sort.” But commutation has changed a lot now for the better and Suraj Kund has come to be associated with the annual crafts mela held there every February. Thus giving a new tinge to the ballad, even though the locale is being fast denuded of its hills because of the rampant stone-quarrying by colonisers.
