Timeline
A consolidated chronology of the Varaha line — from the Altai steppe (c. 1000 BCE) to the final Shivalik settlement at Ambota (17th c. CE). Tilde (~) marks approximate dates; question marks mark disputed dates. Entries set in bold rest on a dated document — an inscription, a revenue register or a gazetteer; the rest are narrative context or clan tradition, and the distinction is the one that matters. Where this timeline has been corrected since the first edition the old reading is given alongside the new one rather than removed. Two rulers share the name Vinaypal — Raja Vineypal Variah I (mid-7th c., builder of Bhim Garh) and Raja Vinaypal of Bhatinda (12th c., a later descendant under whom Bhatinda fell to Ghori); they are roughly five centuries apart.
Key Varaha event
External / contemporary context
Ruler
Battle
Inscription
DNA / coin
External / contemporary context
Ruler
Battle
Inscription
DNA / coin
I
Origins — the Altai steppe
Slab-grave culture · animal-style art · split from Xiongnu cousins
c. 1000 BCE — 89 CE
c. 1000–700 BCE
Slab-grave culture in the Altai mountains; gold-inlay boar-and-deer animal style emerges.
c. 350 BCE
Western Altai clans separate from the Mongolian Xiongnu cousin-line. No source attaches this clan to that event; the entry is background to the steppe narrative, not evidence for it.
c. 900 BCE
Swat valley Iron Age cemeteries — Q lineages within Q-L275, including Q-Y1150, present on the Indus frontier (Narasimhan et al., 2019). The clan’s Y-haplogroup is in the region some fifteen centuries before any Hun reaches the Hindu Kush, which means it cannot date a Hunnic arrival.
~209 BCE
Modun kills Touman; the Xiongnu confederation is unified on the eastern steppe.
162 BCE
Han Emperor Wendi’s edict to the Xiongnu shanyu — Sima Qian, Shiji.
99 BCE
Han general Li Ling captured by the Xiongnu.
36 BCE
Death of Chanyu Zhizhi; western Xiongnu push begins.
89 CE
Han general Dou Xian breaks the northern Xiongnu; western migration accelerates.
II
Migration west — Bactria & Persia
Kushan, Sassanian, Kidarite, early Hephthalite
110 — 484 CE
110–134 CE
Reign of Kanishka the Great (Kushan empire); Bactrian-Greek-Indian syncretism on coinage.
234 CE
Sassanian Ardashir I conquers Bactria; Kushanshah viceroyalty installed.
~250 CE
Markandeya Purana mentions Varvaras alongside the Sakas. The Puranic Varvaras/Barbaras are a generic term for north-western foreign peoples; no source identifies them with this clan, and the resemblance of the name is not by itself evidence.
311 CE
Huns conquer Lo-yang (Luoyang).
313 CE
Sogdian merchant Nanaivande’s letter — first written reference to “the Huns” en route.
345 CE
Guptas absorb Gandhara, Kashmir, East Punjab.
367 CE
Kidarites attested in Armenian sources.
410 CE
Kidarites rule both sides of the Hindu Kush.
413–455 CE
Reign of Kumaragupta I; Kidarite/Hun pressure on the Guptas.
~455 CE
Bhitari Pillar of Skandagupta — victory over the Hunas.
459 CE
Hephthalites take Bactria from the Kidarites.
470s CE
Hephthalites finish off the Kidarites in Gandhara.
484 CE
Battle of the Trench — Sassanian Peroz I killed by the Hephthalite Warāz.
III
Hephthalites & Alkhans
Khingila · Toramana · Mihirakula · Bhim Garh fortified
c. 430 — 6th c. CE
c. 430/40–490 CE
Reign of Khingila — first Alkhan king to mint named coinage; Gardez Ganesha consecrated.
484–515 CE
492/93 CE
Schøyen Copper Scroll — coalition of eight Alkhan kings.
510 CE
Toramana’s authority extends to Malwa.
515 CE
Toramana dies at Benares; Mihirakula succeeds.
520 CE
Songyun meets Mihirakula in Gandhara.
~530 CE
Cosmas Indicopleustes — King Gollas (Mihirakula).
~537 CE
Mihirakula defeated by Yasodharman (Mandasor) and Baladitya (Bihar); dies.
~554 CE
Mihirakula’s sons defeated; flee to Kashmir.
~655 CE
Raja Vineypal Variah I fortifies Bhim Garh on the Sutlej.
late 6th c.
Battle of Gol-Zarriun (Bukhara); Hephthalite-Sassanian alliance breaks under Turkic pressure; the Hephthalite king V.R.Z./Warāz is killed.
IV
Turk Shahi
Barha Tegin founds Kabul dynasty · Arab pressure
630 — 813 CE
630 CE
Xuanzang traveling through Gandhara.
648–659 CE
Western Turkic Khaganate collapses under Tang.
665–66 CE
Arab raids on Kabul.
666 CE
Barha Tegin founds the Turk Shahi dynasty.
671/72 CE
Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad burns Tepe Sardar.
680 CE
Khorasan Tegin Shah succeeds Barha Tegin.
692 CE (S. 748)
Jhalrapatan Inscription of Raja Doorgangul — Varaha king in Rajasthan.
720–764 CE
Janos Harmatta’s later Turk Shahi succession (Phromo Kesaro, Po-fu-Chun, Ju-lo-li Gandhara).
~779 CE
Jaina Kuvalayamala references Toramana.
813 CE
The Ispahbad of Kabul converts to Islam under Caliph Al-Mamun.
V
Hindu Shahi
Lalliya · Bhatinda & Banni Pal · Mahmud of Ghazna · 1026 collapse
~843 — 1026 CE
~843 CE
Kallar/Lalliya overthrows Lagaturman; Hindu Shahi dynasty founded.
~860 CE
Raja Banni Pal founds Bhatinda fort; Bhati capital at Tanot raided by Varah-Panwar coalition.
883 CE
Lalliya at Udabhandapura under Sankaravarman of Kashmir.
902–904 CE
Kamaluka crowned under Gopalavarman of Kashmir.
~939–967 CE
Rashtrakuta Krishna III; Somadeva on Huna conquest of Citrakuta.
late 10th c. CE
The Bhatinda inscription of Rājā Śatrughnadeva, recovered from the tomb of Haji Ratan and published by D. R. Sahni, Epigraphia Indica XXI, no. 44. It names the city Tribhāṁdanapura — almost certainly what the Persian chroniclers render as Tabarhindah — and a ruler of what Sahni calls a local family. Sahni states in print that Raverty was wrong to make Bhatinda the capital of Jayapāla. This is the only inscription ever found at Bhatinda.
1006–07 CE (V.S. 1063)
The Barlū devli, Jodhpur State — recording the death of Rājā Dahita, son of Javikava, a Mahā-Varāha; Bhandarkar’s List of Inscriptions of Northern India, entry no. 102, with his own footnote: “Corresponds to Barāhī, an old Rajpūt clan.” The earliest dated use of the clan style. Corrected: the first edition gave this as entry no. 103 and dated it 1011.
988 CE
Jayapala defeated by Sabuktigin at Lamghan.
1001 CE
Mahmud of Ghazna defeats Jayapala at Peshawar; Jayapala immolates himself.
1008 CE
Battle of Wahind — Mahmud defeats Anandapala and the Rajput coalition.
1009 CE
Mahmud takes Kangra Fort; Masrur temple complex sacked; throne of Raja Bhim taken to Ghazni.
1021 CE
Trilocanapala killed.
1026 CE
Bhimapala dies; Hindu Shahi political line ends.
c. 1648–66 CE
Muhṇot Nainsī’s Khyāt gives the clan a chapter of its own and records that the tract between Vikampur and Derāwar — Chitrānglas — “is to this day called Varihāho” (part 2, pp. 25–26). He affiliates the clan to the Paramāras, not the Shāhis. The sentence formerly quoted here — “lords of Uchchha and Derawar” — came from a web portal, not from the Khyāt.
VI
Final settlement — Bhatinda · Sirhind · Ambota
Survival lines · Cholistan branch · Jahangir-era conversions
1191 — 1967 CE
1191 CE
Muhammad of Ghor takes Tabarhindah (Bhatinda) on the eve of the first battle of Tarain under Raja Vinaypal of Bhatinda (12th-c. descendant; not the 7th-c. Vineypal Variah I). Corrected: this entry formerly gave 1130 CE, which cannot be right — Muhammad of Ghor was not campaigning in the Punjab sixty years before Tarain. The name Vinaypāl comes from Sant Visakha Singh (1953) and is tradition, not record.
1174 CE
Ghori sacks Ghazna.
1192 CE
Second Battle of Tarain — Prithviraj Chauhan defeated; Rajput frontier collapses.
~16th c. CE
Birāhān/Varaha disappear from Rajasthan/Punjab/Sindh records.
1605–27 CE
Reign of Jahangir — the conversions that the community’s own material dates to this reign, with Rai Kālu at that point; Varahas migrate Bhatinda → Sirhind → the Shivalik foothills. Corrected: this entry formerly read “17th c. CE — Aurangzeb-era forced conversions.” Aurangzeb is the later and more familiar villain; the sources point to Jahangir.
Mughal period
Chaudhary Jahjar Chand moves from Arniala and settles in Anboota (Ambota).
1595 CE
The Āʾīn-i-Akbarī — Abūʾl-Fazl lists Barāh as the zamīndār caste of Sirhind, Samāna and Karyāt Rāe Samū in the sarkār of Sirhind. The earliest hard attestation of the clan under its own name, in an imperial revenue register that was not written by or for it. The same tables enter Bhatinda as a Bhatti holding.
1904 CE
The Phulkian States Gazetteer records the twelve chhats and twenty-four makans of the Varyāh brotherhood of the Puadh — Jhal and Kakrā among them as separate seats, and Samāna, giving three centuries of continuity there with the Āʾīn. In the same year the Bahawalpur State Gazetteer enumerates Varyáh among the tribes of the Cholistan tract.
1740s CE
Sadiq Mohammad I wrests Derawar Fort from Rawal Akhi Singh; Cholistan branch ends.
26 May 1967
Ambota Vanshavali formally recorded in state revenue documents.
For the textual sources behind each date see the Sources page; for the era pillar pages, see I — Altai, II — Migration West, III — Hephthalites & Alkhans, IV — Turk Shahi, V — Hindu Shahi, and VI — Final Settlement.
Last revised 18 October 2026.
