Khingala, also transliterated Khinkhil, Khinjil or Khinjal, (

Sharada script The Śāradā, Sarada or Sharada script is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. The script was widespread between the 8th and 12th centuries in the northwestern parts of Indian Subcontinent (in Kashmir and neighbouring ...

''khiṃ-gā-la'', ruled circa 775-785 CE) was a ruler of the

Turk Shahis The Turk Shahis or Kabul Shahis were a dynasty of Western Turk, or mixed Turko- Hephthalite, origin, that ruled from Kabul and Kapisa to Gandhara in the 7th to 9th centuries AD. They may have been of Khalaj ethnicity."The new rulers of Kabu ...

. He is only known in name from the accounts of the Muslim historian Ya'qubi and from an epigraphical source, the '' Gardez Ganesha''. The identification of his coinage remains conjectural.

Arabic accounts

The Muslim historian Ya'qubi (died 897/8) in his ''Ta'rikh'' ("History"), recounts that the third

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

Caliph A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...

Al-Mahdi (ruled 775-785 CE) asked for, and apparently obtained, the submission of various

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

n rulers, including that of the Kabul Shah. Al-yaqubi seems to give the name of the Kabul Shah as "Ḥanḥal", but the reading is uncertain. But a later handwritten copy of the book is known to transcribe the name as "Khanjal". The original account by Ya'qubi reads: The name "Khanjal" has been variously reconstructed as "Khinkhil", "Khinjil" or "Khinjal", and is very similar to the name of an earlier Alchon Hun ruler named Khingila (5th century CE). According to historian Rezakhani, the name mentioned by Ya'qubi is "obviously a namesake" of Khingila.

Epigraphy

The '' Gardez Ganesha'' is a statue of the

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

god

Ganesha Ganesha ( sa, गणेश, ), also known as Ganapati, Vinayaka, and Pillaiyar, is one of the best-known and most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon and is the Supreme God in Ganapatya sect. His image is found throughout India. Hindu d ...

, discovered in

Gardez , settlement_type =City , image_skyline =gardez_paktya.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption =The Bala Hesar fortress in the center of Gardez City , image_flag = , flag_size = , image_sea ...

, near

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. It is considered as "a typical product of the Indo-Afghan school". A dedicatory inscription appears on the base of the statue. It is written in the Siddhamatrika script, a development of the

Brahmi script Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' o ...

. An analysis of the writing suggests a date from the 6th or 8th century CE. The identity of this Khingala is uncertain. A famous Khingila is known from the dynasty of the Alchon Huns, and one of his coins has the legend "''Deva Shahi Khingila''" ( Gupta ashoka de

"God-King Khingila"), but he is dated quite earlier, to the 5th century CE. Given the stylistically probable mid-8th century date for the Ganesha, the ''Śrī Ṣāhi Khiṃgāla'' of the inscription may have been identical with the Turk Shahi ruler of Kabul known in Arab sources as Khinkhil or Khinjil, who, according to Ya'qubi, gave his submission to Al-Mahdi in 775-785.

Relation with Bo Fuzhun

There is a possibility that the Khinkhil of the Arabs is identical with the Turk Shahi Bo Fuzhun (勃匐準) of the Chinese sources, which mention that he was the son of

Fromo Kesaro Fromo or Phromo Kesaro (Bactrian script: , phonetical transcription of "Rome Caesar") was a king of the Turk Shahis (also known as the Kabul Shahis), a dynasty of Western Turk or mixed Western Turk- Hephthalite origin, who ruled from Kabul an ...

and acceded to the throne precisely in 745 CE.天寶四年,又冊其子勃匐準為襲罽賓及烏萇國王,仍授左驍衞將軍。"Kesar's son Bo Fuzhun succeed him on the throne as the king of Jibin and

Oddiyana (also: ''Uḍḍiyāna'', ''Uḍḍāyāna'' or ''Udyāna'', Sanskrit: ओड्डियान, उड्डियान, उड्डायान, उद्यान; , , mn, Үржин ''urkhin''), was a small region in early medieval India, ...

. He was conferred the title General of the Left Stalwart Guard" in

References

Notes

Sources

* * * * * * * * * {{Afghanistan topics Turkic dynasties Dynasties of Afghanistan Kabul Shahi