Hindu Shahis

The Hindu Shahis (also known as Odi Shahis, Uḍi Śāhis, or Brahman Shahis, 822–1026 CE) were a dynasty that held sway over the Kabulistan, Gandhara and western Punjab during the early medieval period in the Indian subcontinent. Details regarding past rulers can only be assembled from disparate chronicles, coins and stone inscriptions. Scholarship on Hindu Shahis remain scarce. Colonial scholars—James Prinsep, Alexander Cunningham, Henry Miers Elliot, Edward Thomas et al.—had published on the Hindu Shahis, primarily from a numismatic perspective. The first comprehensive volume on the subject appeared in 1972 by Yogendra Mishra, a professor in the Department of History of Patna University; he explored the Rajatarangini meticulously but lacked in numismatics and paleography. The next year, Deena Bandhu Pandey—Professor of Art History at Banaras Hindu University—published his doctoral dissertation but his handling of Muslim sources, coins etc. were laden with errors, primarily stemming from an exclusive dependence upon English translations of Arabic/Persian chronicles. Both of these works are considered outdated and inaccurate, at large. In 1979, Abdur Rehman received his PhD from Australian National University on "history, archaeology, coinage, and paleography" of the Turk Shahis and Hindu Shahis under the supervision of Arthur Llewellyn Basham. He has since published on the subject extensively and is considered to be an authority on the subject. In 2010, Michael W. Meister—Chair Professor of Art-History at UPenn—published a monograph on the temple-architecture of Sahis; he had worked with Rahman on multiple field investigations. In 2017, Ijaz Khan received his PhD from the School of Ancient History and Archaeology of the University of Leicester on "Settlement Archaeology of the Hindu Shahi[s] in North-Western Pakistan." No literature survives from Hindu Shahi courts. Unlike the case of Turk Shahis, only fragmented information can be obtained from chronicles of neighboring powers — Kashmir and Ghaznavi.

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Related concepts (6)

Turk Shahis

The Turk Shahis or Kabul Shahis were a dynasty of Western Turk, or mixed Turko-Hephthalite, origin, that ruled from Kabul and Kapisa to Gandhara in the 7th to 9th centuries AD. They may have been of Khalaj ethnicity. The Gandhara territory may have been bordering the Kashmir kingdom and the Kanauj kingdom to the east. From the 560s, the Western Turks had gradually expanded southeasterward from Transoxonia, and occupied Bactria and the Hindu-Kush region, forming largely independent polities.

History of Pakistan

The history of Pakistan preceding the country's independence in 1947 is shared with that of Afghanistan, India, and Iran. Spanning the western expanse of the Indian subcontinent and the eastern borderlands of the Iranian plateau, the region of present-day Pakistan served both as the fertile ground of a major civilization and as the gateway of South Asia to Central Asia and the Near East. Situated on the first coastal migration route of Homo sapiens out of Africa, the region was inhabited early by modern humans.

History of Afghanistan

The history of Afghanistan, preceding the establishment of the Emirate of Afghanistan in 1823 is shared with that of neighbouring Iran, central Asia and Indian subcontinent. The Sadozai monarchy ruled the Afghan Durrani Empire, considered the founding state of modern Afghanistan. Human habitation in Afghanistan dates back to the Middle Paleolithic era, and the country's strategic location along the historic Silk Road has led it to being described, picturesquely, as the ‘roundabout of the ancient world’.