Battle of Chach (Waihind)

01The near victory

Mahmud crossed the Indus at the end of 1008 and found Anandapala waiting on the plain of Chach with allies and Khokhar levies. For forty days, by Firishta’s account, the armies faced each other while Mahmud dug trenches. When the fighting began, thousands of Khokhars broke into the Ghaznavid camp and cut down several thousand men, and Mahmud was on the point of withdrawing. Then Anandapala’s elephant, frightened by naphtha and arrows, turned and fled, and his army took it for the king’s flight.

02After Chach

Mahmud pursued, then turned to Bhimnagar, the fort of Nagarkot in Kangra, whose temple treasury al-Utbi describes in detail. The Shahis lost the Indus line. Anandapala’s son Trilochanapala fought on at Nandana in the Salt Range and on the Tawi; he was killed in 1021, and his son Bhimapala died in 1026. The Hindu Shahi line, which had held the north-west gate for nearly two centuries, ended with them.

Person · Reigned c. 1002–1010 CEAnandapalaAnandapala took the Shahi throne after his father Jayapala’s death and twice stood against Mahmud of Ghazni. In 1008 he gathered the largest Hindu army yet seen on the Indus, and it came close to victory on the Chach plain before it broke.Read →