Jhala (Zala)ઝાલા

The account

The Makhwans — as the Jhalas (Zalas) were first known — held a small principality at Karanti near Nagar Parkar in southern Sindh. They claim descent from Markand Rishi of Badrikashram and call themselves Suryavanshi, of the solar line.

Their leader Harpal migrated towards north Gujarat, where his services were enlisted by Karan Solanki in subduing the tribes of northern Saurashtra. As reward he was granted five hundred villages — the tract that came to be known as Jhalawad. Harpal married the Solanki princess Shaktidevi and established himself at Patdi.

Tradition holds that when Shaktidevi rescued her three sons and a Charan boy from the onslaught of a mad elephant, her descendants took the name Jhala (Zala) — from jhalavun, “to snatch away.” Shaktidevi is worshipped to this day as a dynastic goddess of the Jhalas (Zalas).

The senior line later ruled from Halvad. When Raj Chandrasinhji died, rivalry among his sons split the clan: Sultanji, the rightful Tilat of Halvad, strove all his life to regain the gadi, while his kinsmen carved out Wankaner and Wadhwan. By the second quarter of the seventeenth century the clan held five separate chiefdoms — Dhrangadhra, Wankaner, Wadhwan, Limbdi and Chuda — joined later by Sayla and Lakhtar.

Raj Ranmalji, the most accomplished ruler of the line, occupied the gadi of Dhrangadhra from 1843 to 1869; his successor Maharaja Mansinhji founded schools and dispensaries and built the Prince of Wales Hospital. The Raj Saheb of Dhrangadhra — the direct line of Harpal Makhwan — is respected as the head of the Jhala (Zala) clan in Saurashtra.