Prabhakaradeva sets Toramana on the Shahi throne

01The expedition

Kalhana says that Prabhakaradeva, the treasurer and favourite of queen Sugandha, led an army to Udabhanda, overthrew the Shahi kingdom there, and gave it to Toramana, son of Lalliya, renaming him Kamaluka. The reason given is that the Shahi had become hostile. The episode shows how closely the two Hindu kingdoms of the north-west were bound: Kashmir and the Shahis married into each other’s families and meddled in each other’s successions for a century.

02Kalhana’s irony

Kalhana does not admire Prabhakaradeva. He notes that the man had embezzled from the treasury, and that his success abroad was used to cover his misdeeds at home; when the young king Gopalavarman began to look into the accounts, he died suddenly, and Kalhana reports the suspicion that the minister had him killed. The Shahis remained a power, and a century later Bhimadeva Shahi’s granddaughter Didda would rule Kashmir itself.

Dynasty · c. 822–1026 CEHindu Shahis of Kabul and UdabhandapuraA Brahmin minister founded this house in the Kabul valley, and for two hundred years it stood between India and the armies coming from the west. Jayapala, Anandapala and Trilochanapala fought Ghazni until the line ended in 1026.Read →