THE PUSHYABHUTIS and skirmishes of the Huns in the 6th-7th centuries AD.

While the Byzantine Empire stretched from Italy to Turkey and north Africa in the west, Asian kingdoms were being conquered by Sassanians (in Iran), the Göktürks (also known as Blue Turks). And on the Indian subcontinent, the great Gupta Empire was now being reduced to shadows. It was now overthrown by the Huns who had previously ravaged European lands and were now being dominant in Indian territories. The entire phase between the fall of the Guptas and establishment of the next major empire - Harsha Vardhana (in 604 AD) - was the constant skirmishes between local kings and Hunnic raids.

This comes to an important less-known chapter in Indian history - the raids of Huns. The connection of Huns is mostly done with European kingdoms. Its widely known that the combination of nomadic tribes such as the Huns, Visigoths, the Vandals, Goths etc. were responsible for the fall of the mighty Roman Empire. The most popular among the Huns, is Atilla (known as Atilla the Hun) who although failed to take over cities like Rome, Constantinople, Roman Gaul (France), etc. but was much feared by the Roman armies. But this post is about discussing the lesser known Hunnic connection with India and how the Harshavardhana (or Harsha-Vardhana) empire superseded the Hunnic attempts to expand - probably one of the first non-Indic tribal expansions on the subcontinent.

The origin of Huns is quite hazy. Some historians claim they were basically the Xiongnu people (a vast area spread across Mongolia, Manchuria and the Steppes), while most agree that they originated from today's Kazakhstan. At the decline of the Guptas, the Huns invaded Indic kingdoms around 6th century AD. Covering whole of north India, Pakistan (leaving Sindh and Baluchistan), eastern Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the Sinkiang region of China, the Huns in India were known as Hephthalites or White Huns.

Although the last Hun kingdom (a rather short-lived around Malwa) ended with King Mihirakula in around 540 AD, there were still Hunnic raids happening for a good part in the next century. And here we come across a king known as Prabhakaravardhana (प्रभाकारवर्धन), an important linkage between the last Hunnic raiders in India and the upcoming Harshavardhana empire. Father of Harshavardhana, he belonged to the Pushpabhuti (or Pushyabhuti) dynasty who had forged an alliance to another dynasty known as Maukharis (मौखरि). All this is happening in today's north Indian belt.

Although Huns never really ceased to exist, but their traces from the Indian subcontinent diminished with the rise of Islam in the next centuries. But the chapter of Hunnic raids especially of Mihirakula who enforced a strict Hindu Shaivism and opposed Buddhism so much so that he destroyed over 1400 Buddhist monasteries in Kashmir, Gandhara (region around today's Peshawar) and the ancient kingdoms around the Swat valley of today's Pakistan. Interestingly, Mihirakula (r.515-540) was unlike his father Toramana (r.493-515) who was far more tolerant and just to his subjects and conquered lands.

With fighting the skirmishes against the Huns and eventually extending the family lineage with Harshavardhana and Rajyavardhana, the Vardhana or Pushyabhutis reigned the northern Indian belt till 647 AD, succeeding by the Gurjara-Pratihara empire. Its interesting to know that how much before the Islamic incoming on the subcontinent, there were raids and destruction of Buddhist monasteries by practicing Hindu empires (referring to the Huns in India), a chapter softly lost in the medieval history of India. The map here shows the extent of Pushyabhutis all the way from today's Himachal Pradesh to the coast of Odisha.