Anandapala

Hindu Shahi king · reigning c. 1001 – 1010 CE · Battle of Wahind, 1008

Anandapala — son of Jayapala — is the Hindu Shahi king who faces the full force of Mahmud of Ghazna’s invasions. The decisive engagement is the Battle of Wahind in 1008 CE, fought near modern Hund on the Indus. Anandapala assembles a Rajput coalition — Ujjain, Gwalior, Kannauj, Kalinjar, Delhi, Ajmer — under the unifying threat of the Ghaznavid invasion, and the army is comparable in scale to anything fielded against Mahmud in his entire career. The defeat is decisive nonetheless.

The fall of Kangra Fort

Mahmud follows the retreating Anandapala to the Kangra hills, takes Kangra Fort in 1009 CE, and — Prof. N. K. Singh has argued — sacks the nearby Masrur rock-cut temple complex on the same campaign. The throne of Raja Bhim is taken to Ghazni; a silk genealogical scroll listing sixty generations is recovered from Kangra Fort.

Sources

• Al-Utbi, Tarikh-i Yamini
• Firishta, Tarikh-i Firishta
• Kalhana, Rajatarangini, Book VI
• Singh, N. K., Coronation of Shiva — Rediscovering Masrur Temple (2009)
• Abdur Rehman, The Last Two Dynasties of the Shahis (1988)