THE RATHORE

Rathod
About Rathod History. .........
Based on "khyats" (traditional accounts) written in seventeenth century, it is surmised that the Rathores and Rathods were originally feudatories of the Ujjaini-based Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty, and may perhaps have been domiciled in the vicinity of Kannauj in the heyday of that dynasty. Pratihara-ruled Kannauj was sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1019 CE, which ushered in a chaotic period for that area. A family known to us as the "Gahadvala" dynasty gained control of Kannauj and ruled for nearly a century; their best-known dynast was Raja Jaichand, their last king. The Gahadvalas were displaced from Kannauj by the invasion, in 1194 CE, of Muhammad of Ghor. It is said that Sheoji, a surviving grandson of Jaichand, made his way into the western desert with a group of faithful followers, finally settling in the town of Pali in Marwar, which was ruled by another branch of the Pratiharas. Sheoji is regarded as the patriarch of the entire Rathore clan and all Rathores and Rathods trace their patrilineage back to him. The tradition finds supports from a number of inscriptions found in the vicinity of Kannauj that mention several generations of a Rashtrakuta dynasty ruling there for two centuries. A very similar account is also mentioned in the "Rashtrayudha Kavya" of Rudrakavi, finished in 1595, who was the court poet in the court of the Rathore king, Narayana of Mayurgiri.
His Branches
The Rathores gradually spread across Marwar, forming a brotherhood of landowners and village chieftains, loosely bound to each other by ties of clan and caste. An epoch in the history both of Marwar and of the Rathores was marked by Rao Jodha, a warrior who founded a kingdom that grew to encompass all of Marwar. He also founded the city of Jodhpur in 1459, and moved his capital thither from Mandore. One of his sons, Rao Bika, with the help of his brave uncle Rawat Kandhal, established the town of Bikaner in 1488, in the Jangladesh region lying to the north of Marwar; that town was to become the seat of a second major Rathore kingdom. Some of these migrations from Marwar into Gujarat caused changes in language and the spelling of Rathore to Rathod, which is seen in clans present in Gujarat. Rathods of Gujarat trace their history to the city Jodhpur.
The various cadet branches of the Rathore clan gradually spread to encompass all of Marwar and later sallied abroad to found states in Central India and Gujarat. At the time of India's independence in 1947, the princely states ruled by various branches of the Rathore clan included:
Rathore, Family (Kashyap)Living in Nagod Estate now in District Satna of Madhya Pradesh
Rathur, living in the metro-Detroit area of Michigan in the United States of America (when Mughal Emperor Jahangir brought some Rajput soldiers with him on his conquest of Kashmir, many of them settled there and embraced Islam. Several of the Kashmiri Rathores changed their name to "Rathur").