Mahmud’s raid on Mathura and Kanauj

01Down the doab

Mahmud’s secretary al-Utbi, who wrote the Tarikh-i-Yamini, follows the march stage by stage. Baran, today’s Bulandshahr, submitted. At Mahaban on the Yamuna its chief Kulachand fought, lost, and killed himself rather than be taken. Then came Mathura. Al-Utbi describes a great temple there, built of stone, which Mahmud is made to say could not be raised again in two hundred years, and idols of gold set with jewels. The idols were broken and melted, the city burned for days, and the plunder was carried off on camels.

02Kanauj without its king

Kanauj had been the prize of the Tripartite Struggle and the capital of Mihira Bhoja. By 1018 the Pratihara house was a shadow of that power. Rajyapala did not stand. He crossed the Ganga and left the city, with its seven forts and many temples, to the Ghaznavids, who took it in December 1018 by al-Utbi’s dating. Mahmud went on to Munj, Asni and Sharwa before turning home laden with captives and treasure.

Person · Reigned c. 1003–1035 CEVidyadharaVidyadhara ruled the Chandela kingdom of Jejakabhukti, modern Bundelkhand, when Mahmud of Ghazni reached the Ganga plain. He punished the king of Kanauj for submitting to Mahmud, faced the Sultan’s army twice and kept his kingdom. The Kandariya Mahadeva temple at Khajuraho is generally dated to his reign.Read →

03The Chandela answer

Other Rajput kings judged the flight shameful. Vidyadhara Chandela sent his ally against Rajyapala, and the Dubkund inscription of the Kachchhapaghata chief Arjuna claims that he killed the king of Kanauj in battle. The Chandelas then became Mahmud’s next target, and he twice marched against Vidyadhara in the years that followed without breaking him.