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

The Jhalrapatan Inscription is the earliest direct Indian epigraphic evidence for a Varaha king ruling Rajasthan in the late seventh century — exactly the period when the Turk Shahi dynasty is being founded by Barha Tegin at Kabul. The inscription is one of the documents Prof. G. S. L. Devra uses to identify the Varaha clan as the ruling family of pre-medieval north-west India in his JSTOR paper of 2003.

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)