The Hephthalites & the Alkhans

c. 430 – 600 CE · Tokharistan, Gandhara, Kashmir, Malwa

The Alkhan (Alkhono / Alchon / Alkhon) are the southern branch of the Hephthalite-Waraz lineage, who crossed the Hindu Kush in the second half of the fifth century CE and ruled Gandhara, the Punjab, Kashmir, and — at their fullest extent — Malwa, Sindh, and parts of central India. The name itself is bilingual: Greek Alkhono, Sanskrit Alakhana, possibly from a Bactrian base meaning “noble Hun”. Étienne de la Vaissière has argued that Khingila, the dynasty’s first attested ruler, derives his royal name from the Xiongnu sacred sword Kenglu / Ching-lu — a steppe inheritance carried west through the Altai centuries earlier.

The Schøyen Copper Scroll

The single most important document for the Alkhan dynasty is the Schøyen Copper Scroll from Talagan (modern Talaqan, Afghanistan), inscribed in Brahmi in 492/93 CE in the Laukika era. The scroll, edited by Gudrun Melzer and Hans T. Bakker in Hunnic Peoples in Central and South Asia (Barkhuis, 2020), records the consecration of a stupa relic by a coalition of contemporary Alkhan kings — and so gives us, in a single document, the dynastic geography of the late fifth century. The scroll names Talaganika-Devaputra-Sahi, Sarada-Sahi, Khingila, Toramana, Sasa, Sahi Mehama, Sadavıkha, and King Javukha. See the full post on the Schøyen Scroll.

Khingila

Khingila (Bactrian Þīīhgila / Þoorgila; reigning c. 430/40 – 490 CE) is the first Alkhan ruler to put his name and his portrait on coins. His silver drachms, struck on Sassanian models, carry the legend “Khingila, of the Alkhan” in Bactrian script. The Gardez Ganesha inscription — published by D. C. Sircar in Epigraphia Indica 35 (1966), pp. 44–60 — records his consecration of a Maha-Vinayaka image: “Parama-bhattaraka-maharajadhiraja, illustrious Sri Khingala”. Pfisterer (Vondrovec 2014, Coinage of the Iranian Huns) groups the Alkhan rulers — Khingila, Javukha, Mehama, Lakhana, Toramana, Mihirakula — by die-link analysis of their coinage. See the full post on Khingila.

Toramana and the Eran Boar

Toramana (reigning c. 484/93 – 515 CE) is the Alkhan king who carried Hunnic power deepest into India. The Eran Boar Inscription in Sagar district, Madhya Pradesh — dated to his first regnal year, c. 500 CE — depicts a colossal stone boar consecrated by his minister Dhanyavishnu, with an inscription naming Toramana as maharajadhiraja. The Sanjeli copper plates, in his third regnal year, record donations from Vadrapalli, Ujjain, Kannauj, Mathura, and Mandasor traders, demonstrating that his fiscal authority reached central and western India. The Kura Pillar inscription from the Salt Range gives him the title Sahi Jawlah — “ruler of Kabul” — and records his patronage of a Mahīśāsaka Buddhist vihara. Toramana dies at Benares in 515 CE, aged sixty, and is succeeded by his son Mihirakula. See the full post on Toramana.

Mihirakula and the limits of empire

Mihirakula (reigning c. 515 – 537 CE; Greek Gollas in Cosmas Indicopleustes; Sanskrit Mihiragula, “given by the sun”; Vajrayana Hakarakhya in the Arya Manjusri Mula Kalpa) inherits an empire that runs from Kashmir to Malwa. The Korean monk Songyun, traveling through Gandhara in 520 CE, met him at his court and recorded the title tegin. Mihirakula’s reign turns on two reverses. In Malwa he is defeated by Yasodharman of Dasapura — the Mandasor pillar inscription celebrates the victory; in Bihar he is defeated by the Gupta king Baladitya. After his death (variously placed in Kashmir and Bihar) the Alkhan empire splinters, but Hunnic dynasties remain in power in Kashmir and Punjab for another 150 years.

Iconography — the boar in Bamiyan

Beyond the inscriptions, the dynasty left a rich visual record. The painted boar on the ceiling of the niche of the 53-metre Bamiyan Buddha — described by Rowland in The Art of Central Asia and analysed by A. D. H. Bivar (2003) — is the totem of Verethragna, brought south by the Alkhan and added to the Buddhist pantheon as a guardian. The frescoes of Dilberjin, Balalyk-tepe, Adzhina-tepe, Kalai Kafirnigan, and Pendzhikent show the Alkhan court — bearded, long-haired, in the tunics that Songyun describes — alongside Buddhist and Saivite imagery.

Battle of Gol-Zarriun and the dispersal

In the late sixth century, the Western Turkic Khaganate under Sinjibu Kaghan, allied to Khusrau I of Persia, defeated the Hephthalite-Waraz at the Battle of Gol-Zarriun near Bukhara. The Hephthalite king named in the sources as V.R.Z. / Warāz was killed. The northern Hephthalite court was broken, and the surviving lineage retreated to the Hindu Kush, where it would re-emerge a century later as the Turk Shahi dynasty under Barha Tegin.

Continue to The Turk Shahi, or read more on the Schøyen Copper Scroll and the Eran Boar Inscription.

In this era

• Khingila · Toramana · Mihirakula · Yasodharman
• Schøyen Copper Scroll · Eran Boar · Gardez Ganesha · Kura Pillar · Sanjeli Plates · Bhitari Pillar
• Primary sources — Bakker (2020), Vondrovec (2014), Bivar (2003), Cosmas Indicopleustes, Songyun