Who propounded the Agni-kund theory of the origin of the Rajputs ?

The Agnikula (fire-born) theory is one of the classical explanations offered for the origin of the Rajput clans, alongside the foreign/Central-Asian-origin theory and the solar-lunar (Suryavanshi-Chandravanshi) dynastic theory. According to this legend, sage Vashishtha performed a yajna at a fire-pit (agni-kund) on Mount Abu, from which four warrior clans emerged to destroy demons: the Pratihara (Parihar), Chalukya (Solanki), Paramara (Pawar), and Chahamana (Chauhan).

The earliest known account of this fire-origin narrative is Prithviraj Raso, a medieval epic composed by Chand Bardai, the court poet of the Chahamana ruler Prithviraj III (Prithviraj Chauhan) of Ajmer-Delhi. Chand Bardai is therefore credited with propounding (first articulating) the Agni-kund theory for the origin of the Rajput clans, including his own patron's Chauhan lineage.

Why not the other names?

• Barui does not appear as the author of any Rajasthani bardic or chronicle work in standard historiography of the medieval Rajput clans, and no clan-origin narrative is attributed to this name.

• Jodhraj is credited as the author of Hamir Raso, a later bardic work centred on Hamir Dev Chauhan of Ranthambore. Later bardic literature, including Hamir Raso, repeats the fire-born clan narrative with minor variations, but it is Chand Bardai's earlier Prithviraj Raso that is credited with first propounding it.

• Amir Khusro was a poet-historian at the Delhi Sultanate court across the 13th-14th centuries, working in a Persian literary tradition -- seen in works such as Tarikh-i-Alai -- distinct from the Rajasthani bardic tradition that carries the Rajput clan-origin narratives.

Hence, among the offered names, the Agni-kund theory of the origin of the Rajputs was first propounded by Chand Bardai in his epic Prithviraj Raso; later bardic works merely repeat the narrative he first set down.