Jhalrapatan Inscription

Jhalrapatan, Rajasthan · S. 748 / 692 CE · Sanskrit

The Jhalrapatan Inscription is a Sanskrit pillar inscription from Jhalrapatan in modern Rajasthan, dated to Samvat 748 (692 CE) and naming the local king as Raja Doorgangul (Sanskrit Durgagana). Col. James Tod‘s Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan reproduces the inscription and identifies Durgagana as a Varaha king.

Why it matters

If Durgagana was indeed a Varaha, the Jhalrapatan pillar would be an early epigraphic trace of the clan ruling in Rajasthan in the late seventh century — the very period the Turk Shahi dynasty was being founded by Barha Tegin at Kabul. But that identification is Col. Tod’s reading, carried forward by Prof. G. S. L. Devra (“Political Wilderness and Social Dismemberment,” 2003): the inscription itself names the king Durgagana, not his clan, so the Varaha attribution is an inference, not settled epigraphy. Devra treats it as one of the documents that, taken together, point to the Varaha as a ruling family of pre-medieval north-west India.

Sources

• Burgess, “Two Inscriptions from Jhalarapathan”, Indian Antiquary Vol. 5 (1876)
• Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (Vol. 2)
• Devra, “Political Wilderness and Social Dismemberment” (2003)

Last edited 18 October 2026.