हिंदीOn this day
Photo: SpeakingArch · CC BY-SA 4.0
Inscription · 9th century CE, reign of Mihira Bhoja (c. 836–885)

Gwalior prashasti of Mihira Bhoja

Found
At the Sagar Tal, Gwalior; edited by R. C. Majumdar in 1925
Kept at
Text in Epigraphia Indica XVIII

The Gurjara-Pratihara king Mihira Bhoja’s family history in Sanskrit verse, from the founder who stopped the Arabs to Bhoja himself.

What it says

The line traces itself to Lakshmana, who served as door-keeper (pratihara) to Shri Rama. Of Nagabhata I it says that he appeared like Narayana to protect the people and crushed the large armies of the powerful Mlechchha king, destroyer of dharma. Then come Vatsaraja, Nagabhata II, who took Kanyakubja and is praised for wins over Andhra, Sindhu, Vidarbha, Kalinga and the Turushkas, Ramabhadra and Mihira Bhoja.

What it proves

It is the Pratiharas’ own record of Nagabhata I’s victory over the Arabs of Sindh in the 730s, which kept them out of north India for three centuries.

Evidence for

Nagabhata I

Nagabhata I

The Rajasthan and Gujarat resistance to the Arabs

The Battle of Rajasthan

Mihira Bhoja

Mihira Bhoja

Evidence

Boğazköy treaty naming Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the NasatyasInscription
c. 1380 BCE

Boğazköy treaty naming Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas

A treaty between the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I and Shattiwaza, prince of Mitanni in north Syria, sworn before the gods of both kingdoms. Among the Mitanni gods stand four names any Vedic priest would know.

Behistun inscription of Darius IInscription
c. 520 BCE

Behistun inscription of Darius I

The Persian king Darius I tells, in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, how he took the throne and which lands obeyed him. Gandhara is on the list.

Kandahar bilingual edict of AshokaInscription
c. 258 BCE (ten years after Ashoka’s abhisheka)

Kandahar bilingual edict of Ashoka

Ashoka’s message of dhamma, carved in Greek and Aramaic for the Greek and Persian-speaking subjects at the western edge of his empire.

Edicts of AshokaInscription
c. 268–232 BCE

Edicts of Ashoka

Fourteen major rock edicts, minor rock edicts and seven pillar edicts in which the Maurya emperor speaks in his own voice, as Devanampiya Piyadasi.

Kalinga edicts at Dhauli and JaugadaInscription
c. 3rd century BCE

Kalinga edicts at Dhauli and Jaugada

In conquered Kalinga, Ashoka left out the thirteenth rock edict, which mourns the war, and carved two separate edicts addressed to his officers there instead.

Sohgaura copper plateInscription
Maurya period, c. 3rd century BCE

Sohgaura copper plate

A small bronze-copper plate in early Brahmi, issued by the officials of Shravasti, cast with symbols of storehouses above the text.

Hathigumpha inscription of KharavelaInscription
c. 2nd–1st century BCE

Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela

Seventeen lines in Prakrit and Brahmi recording, year by year, the reign of Kharavela, the Jain emperor of Kalinga.

Heliodorus pillar, BesnagarInscription
c. 113 BCE

Heliodorus pillar, Besnagar

A stone Garuda-dhvaja raised to Vasudeva by Heliodorus, a Greek envoy from Takshashila, at the court of King Bhagabhadra.