Gardez Ganesha Inscription

Gardez, Afghanistan · reign of Khingila · Sanskrit

The Gardez Ganesha is a marble image of Maha-Vinayaka (the Great Ganesha) recovered from the foothills of the Hindu Kush near Gardez, modern Afghanistan. The Sanskrit inscription on its base records the consecration:

Parama-bhattaraka-maharajadhiraja, illustrious Sri Khingala, consecrated this Maha-Vinayaka.

Why it matters

The Gardez inscription gives Khingila his full Sanskrit royal title — Parama-bhattaraka-maharajadhiraja — and so anchors the Alkhan ruling formula in a single named monument. The same title-formula reappears five centuries later on the coinage of the Hindu Shahi dynasty, and the continuity is one of the textual threads that ties the two dynasties together. The image’s iconography — Maha-Vinayaka rather than the more common Ganapati — is unusual, and may reflect specific cult preferences of the Alkhan court.

Sources

• Sircar, D. C., “Gardez Ganesha Inscription”, Epigraphia Indica 35 (1966), pp. 44–60
• Bakker, The Alkhan (2020)
• Vondrovec, Coinage of the Iranian Huns (2014)