Indian kings repel the Arab raids from Sind: Nagabhata I and the battle of Navsari

The campaigns are known from a brief list in al-Baladhuri and from Indian inscriptions. Al-Junayd ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Murri, appointed governor of Sind in 723, sent expeditions against Marmad (Marwar), al-Mandal, Dahnaj and Barus (Bharuch), against Uzayn (Ujjain) and al-Malibah (Malwa), and took al-Baylaman (Bhinmal) and Jurz, the country of the Gurjaras. Under his successor Tamim ibn Zayd al-Utbi (from 726) these gains were lost; al-Hakam ibn Awana, governor from 731, built the fortified camp of al-Mahfuza in Sind and resumed the raids. The Navsari copper plate of Avanijanashraya Pulakeshin — a prince of a branch of the Chalukyas ruling in southern Gujarat, nominally a vassal of the Chalukyas of Badami — is dated in year 490 of the Kalachuri era, which gives 737, 738 or 739 depending on how the era is reckoned, most likely 738. It relates that the Tajikas (Arabs) had overrun the Saindhavas, the Kachchhellas, Saurashtra, the Chavotakas, the Mauryas and the Gurjaras and advanced as far as Navsari before he defeated them in a fierce battle, and it gives him titles such as ‘solid pillar of the Deccan’ and ‘repeller of the unrepellable’.

The victory of Nagabhata I, founder of the imperial line of the Gurjara-Pratiharas, is known mainly from the Gwalior inscription of Mihira Bhoja, a later king of his dynasty (descended from his nephew Devaraja), written more than a century later, which says that he crushed the army of a mleccha (barbarian) king; al-Baladhuri’s mention of a raid on Ujjain is often linked with it. A medieval Jain legend tells of Nahada, the first ruler of his family, who made Jalor his capital and defeated a Muslim ruler; Dasharatha Sharma identified him with Nagabhata. The name ‘Battle of Rajasthan’, sometimes given to these events, suggests a single battle won by a coalition of Indian kings, but the sources reflect a series of raids and counter-attacks over some fifteen years, most of which cannot be dated or located precisely.