Kura Pillar Inscription

Kura, Salt Range, Pakistan · reign of Toramana · Sanskrit

The Kura Pillar is a Sanskrit inscription from Kura in the Salt Range of modern Pakistan, recording the donation of a Buddhist vihara by Toramana. The inscription gives Toramana the title Sahi Jawlah — “ruler of Kabul” — where Jawlah is the Old Turkic word for “falcon”, later adopted as a personal title by the Hindu Shahi line.

Why it matters

Two things make the Kura inscription especially important. First, it explicitly links Toramana’s Indian rule to his Hindu Kush base — Sahi Jawlah, “ruler of Kabul” — and so closes any doubt that the Alkhan kings ruled a single trans-Hindu-Kush realm. Second, the donation is to a vihara of the Mahīśāsaka school of Buddhism, demonstrating Hunnic patronage of an active Buddhist institution and contradicting the older European claim of Hunnic destruction of Gandharan Buddhism.

Sources

• Kura Pillar Inscription
• Bhandarkar, Epigraphia Indica
• Lamotte, History of Indian Buddhism (1988)
• Behrendt, The Buddhist Architecture of Gandhara (2004)