Note 38 — Chapter VIII · THE VALABHIS (a.d. 509–766.)

Chapter VIII. The Valabhis, a.d. 509–766. The Fall of Valabhi, a.d. 750–770. The Fall of Valabhi, a.d. 750–770.Of the overthrow of Valabhi many explanations have been offered.38 The only explanation in agreement with the copperplate evidence that a Śíláditya was ruling at Valabhi as late as a.d. 766 (Val. Saṃ. 447)40 is the Hindu account preserved by Alberuni (a.d. 1030)41 that soon after the Sindh capital Mansúra was founded, say a.d. 750–770, Ranka a disaffected subject of the era-making Valabhi, with presents of money persuaded the Arab lord of Mansúra to send a naval expedition against the king of Valabhi. In a night attack king Valabha was killed and his people and town were destroyed. Alberuni adds: Men say that still in our time such traces are left in Chapter VIII. The Valabhis, a.d. 509–766. The Fall of Valabhi, a.d. 750–770. that country as are found in places wasted by an unexpected attack.42 For this expedition against Valabhi Alberuni gives no date. But as Mansúra was not founded till a.d. 75043 and as the latest Valabhi copperplate is a.d. 766 the expedition must have taken place between a.d. 750 and 770. In support of the Hindu tradition of an expedition from Mansúra against Valabhi between a.d. 750 and 770 it is to be noted that the Arab historians of Sindh record that in a.d. 758 (H. 140) the Khalif Mansúr sent Amru bin Jamal with a fleet of barks to the coast of Barada.44 Twenty years later a.d. 776 (H. 160) a second expedition succeeded in taking the town, but, as sickness broke out, they had to return. The question remains should the word, which in these extracts Elliot reads Barada, be read Balaba. The lax rules of Arab cursive writing would cause little difficulty in adopting the reading Balaba.45 Further it is hard to believe that Valabhi, though to some extent sheltered by its distance from the coast and probably a place of less importance than its chroniclers describe, should be unknown to the Arab raiders of the seventh and eighth centuries and after its fall be known to Alberuni in the eleventh century. At the same time, as during the eighth century there was, or at least as there may have been,46 a town Barada on the south-west coast of Káthiáváḍa the identification Chapter VIII. The Valabhis, a.d. 509–766. The Fall of Valabhi, a.d. 750–770. of the raids against Barada with the traditional expedition against Balaba though perhaps probable cannot be considered certain. Further the statement of the Sindh historians47 that at this time the Sindh Arabs also made a naval expedition against Kandahár seems in agreement with the traditional account in Tod that after the destruction of Valabhi the rulers retired to a fort near Cambay from which after a few years they were driven.48 If this fort is the Kandahár of the Sindh writers and Gandhár on the Broach coast about twenty miles south of Cambay, identifications which are in agreement with other passages, the Arab and Rájput accounts would fairly agree.49