Bhimwal Clan

Mohyal community histories record the Bhimwals as a small but deeply rooted clan, traditionally described as about 3.5% of the Mohyal population. Their gotra is Koshal, derived from the patriarch saint Rishi Kausalya.

According to Rattan Chand Vaid, author of Islah-e-Mohyal, the founder of the Bhimwal family was Raja Nand. This page preserves that tradition as it lives in Mohyal memory, while welcoming documented additions and family corrections.

Bhimwal is one of the seven Mohyal clans and belongs fully within the shared Mohyal kinship structure, even if its surviving public archive is less consolidated than that of Chhibber, Datt, or Vaid.

That does not make the clan secondary. It makes Bhimwal family memory especially important now, because much of what survives may still be living inside households rather than printed books.

According to Rattan Chand Vaid, the Bhimwal story begins with Raja Nand, whose fort at Nandana is remembered near Baganwala village in Tehsil Pind Dadan Khan, District Jhelum. Mohyal community histories record that Mahmud Ghazni plundered Nandana Fort, after which surviving Bhimwals moved toward Makhiala in the nearby Salt Range.

Community tradition remembers Makhiala as a later Bhimwal center and seat of local aristocracy. Garjak Nama preserves the tradition that Janjua forces later attacked Makhiala, destroyed the settlement, and displaced the Bhimwals again. After more than a century of misfortune, the story shifts to Mathura, remembered in Mohyal writing as a haven for Mohyals in distress.

Mohyal community histories further record that when Qutb-ud-din Aibak attacked Mathura in 1195, Raja Dhrupet's ruling family went into exile with two Mohyal noblemen: Rai Trilok Nath Bali and Rai Bam Dev Bhimwal. Some Mohyal scholars remember Rai Bam Dev Bhimwal as the real forefather of the Bhimwal sect, the founder of Makhiala, and the source of the Bhimwal surname.

These accounts are preserved in Mohyal community histories and oral tradition. Families are invited to help strengthen this archive with documents, photographs, village names, and corrections.

Community memory for Bhimwal families points especially toward Nandana, Baganwala, Pind Dadan Khan, Makhiala, the Salt Range, Mathura, and later Punjabi settlement patterns after repeated displacement.

Village names, family trees, district memory, and links between Jhelum-region origins and later resettlement are especially important here because they may preserve continuity that formal summaries only hint at.

The Bhimwal page is not only a history page. It is also a rebuilding page. Like the wider Mohyal community, Bhimwal families were reshaped by Partition, resettlement, and the long work of starting over.

For this archive, migration stories after 1947 are not supplementary. They are central evidence of continuity and survival, and they may help reconnect branches of the clan across India and the diaspora.

Family tradition remembers Makhiala, Nandana, Pind Dadan Khan links, Mathura refuge narratives, lost village names, elder accounts, and the routes families took after Partition.

Bhimwal families: your submissions are especially important. This is one of the priority pages for archive-building on Mohyals.com, and family trees, photographs, oral interviews, and village memory can make a major difference here.

This page draws on Mohyal community memory, oral history, the 1938 Mohyal history, later community writing, and family contributions. Corrections, photographs, village names, and additional sources are welcome.