Gakkhar

The best ancient sources for the Gakhars are Ferishta's history completed in 1606 and the dubious Gakhar history "Kaygawharnāma" by Rāyzāda Dunīchand Bālī which was written in 1725, 125 years after Feristha .

The "Kaygawharnāma" claims the Gakhars were the people of Sassanian Persian nobles who, with their knights, went beyond the northeast frontier of the Sassanian empire. seeking lands in China, Tibet and Kashmir.Gakhar mandi dist gujranwala is the last post of Gakhars. Gakhars therefore use the ancient royal Persian title "Kay or "Kayani as did the Sassanian aristocracy as they claim connection with the semi-mythological Kayani Kings of ancient Iran. Eventually after centuries of wandering, the Gakhars joined forces with the Mahmud of Ghazni in his invasion of 1008 and were rewarded with the kingdom of Potohar, which has since been the territory of the clan.

However in Ferishta's view, the Gakhars were an Indian Kshatriya tribe who resisted Mahmud of Ghazni invasion of India. Anandapal, son of Jayapala Maharaja of Punjab, "...with the Gakhars, and other warlike tribes..." forght a critical battle against the Muslim invader Mahmud of Ghazni in the Punjab in the year 1008. "Mahmud, having thus secured himself, ordered six thousand archers to the front to endeavour to provoke the enemy to attack his entrenchments. The archers were opposed by the Gakhars, who, in spite of the King's (Mahmud of Ghazni) efforts and presence, repulsed his light troops, and followed them so closely, that no less than 30,000 Gakhars with their heads and feet bare, and armed with various weapons, penetrated into the Muslim lines, where a dreadful carnage ensured, and 5000 Muslims in a few minutes were slain."

Most likely the Kaygawharnāma records many years of wandering - from the fall of the Sassanian Empire possibly as late as 682 AD which is when Ferishta records that the Raja of Lahore submitted to terms from the Gakhars predominately Hindus till now. "This treaty included the cession of certain territories in perpetuity to the Gakhars... that they should protect the Indian frontier from the Muslim invasions." In these lands they would have likely formed a small feudal aristocracy controlling many Hindu villages. Despite forced conversion in 1204, according to Ferishta, the Gakhars maintained a largely successful resistance to the Muslim kingdoms that followed before the coming of Babar.