The Hindu Sháhiya Kingdom of Ohind

Extract

With the exception of a very brief notice in Albírúní (Sachau's transl., vol. ii, p. 13) and a few references in the Táríkh-i-Yamíní of al-'Utbí, and the Rajataranginí of Kalhana, there is scarcely any mention of the Hindu Sháhiya dynasty of Ohind (Udabhanda of Rajataranginí and Waihand of Muslim histories), the successors of the Turki Sháhiya dynasty of Kushan. Cunningham (Coins of Mediæval India, pp. 55 et seq.) advances the conjecture that after a period of usurpation by Kallar (the Brahman wazir of the last of the Turki Sháhiya dynasty) and his descendants, the Turki Sháhiya dynasty was revived by the enthronement of Jaipál, the contemporary of Sulṭán Maḥmúd and the ruler of Ohind and the northern Punjab; i.e., Jaipál and his successors, according to Cunningham, were not the descendants of the Brahman Kallar, but of Kánishka and therefore Turks or Rajputs. This view is contradicted by V. A. Smith, and by the passage quoted below, in which Jaipál is definitely called a Brahman.