DEAR SON, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? 83
a theory of kingship: a king must rise to power with a combination of
divine sanction and human will. This is perhaps unsurprising since it
is the crisis of succession that itself informed early-thirteenth-century
Uch-during this time, the military campaigns of Iltutmish, Yildiz,
and Qabacha were raging around Lahore, Delhi, and Uch. As such, con-
flict over succession is both the lived reality and the imagined world
of the text. To this political reality, Chachnama presents a theoretical
world where power must be claimed and cannot simply be inherited.
It must be asserted. The clearest invocation of this political theory is
in the Chach cycle: during the campaign to conquer the four corners
of Sind and after Chach has conquered the east, he turns his attention
to the west and writes "with his pen,",pressing the raja of Agham to
surrender:
You [Raja of Agham] consider yourself to be grand and of great birth
and stature, but I did not get this polity as inheritance from my father
or grandfather, and it is not mine to give in inheritance. It is God who
has arranged for this, not my army. It is by the prayers of Sala'ij that
the only God granted me this polity, and he will always stand with
me. I do not need the aid of any other. He is the one who will eas!!
my difficulties and make my movements easier and will grant me
victory (nusrat o fath) over my enemies. He grants me relief in both
worlds, and if you are confident in your strength, your prestige, and
your magnificence, know that it will all decline, and retributive jus-
tice will fall upon your head.^6
Chach states forcefully that it was not birth that made his claim to
rule, but rather, good conduct yielded divine sanction. This is the
theory of a normative polity presented in Chachnama: rule comes with
divine sanction but with emphasis on the agency of the individual
ruler. The divine will is known by the actors through divine signs.
Prophecy and prognostication are an intimate part of Chachnama, and
the text invokes them for both Muslim and Hindu polities.7
After Chach's death, the question of succession between his two
sons is rais~. Chach's polity could potentially be split between the two
brothers Dahar and Daharsia. Or it could be split three ways, for his
daughter Ma'in Bai was promised in marriage to a neighboring raja. It
is in working through this succession battle in Chachnama that the
relationship among rule, divine intervention, and political acumen is