Person · Aulikara king · India
Yaśodharman
Also known as Yasodharman, Yashodharma, Aulikara
The Aulikara ruler of Dasapura whose victory pillars at Sondani, four kilometres from Mandsaur, claim that he made Mihirakula bow his head — the one explicit record of a Huna king being defeated in India. He also claims territory the Guptas had held, which is why his inscriptions matter for the end of the Gupta order.
- Date
- 515–545
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 24.072, 75.070
Worth knowing
The two Sondani pillars still stand where they were raised, with the sculptured dvarapalas beside them. Everything known about him comes from three inscriptions; no coins and no chronicle survive, and his kingdom disappears from the record within a generation.
About the place
Placed at Mandsaur, the Dasapura of his inscriptions; the victory pillars stand at Sondani just outside it.
Connections (2)
- CampaignMihirakula
The Sondani pillars state that Mihirakula, whom even kings did not approach, was made to bow his head to Yashodharman. It is the only explicit claim of a Huna defeat in an Indian inscription, and it comes from an Aulikara ruler of Dasapura rather than from the Guptas — which is itself the evidence that imperial authority in central India had passed to regional houses.
- Imperial inscription atMandasor (Daśapura)
Yashodharman raised two pillars at Sondani outside Dasapura, and a third inscription at Mandsaur fort claims territory from the Himalaya to the western ocean. The Aulikaras had been Gupta feudatories; within two generations they were claiming an empire. The Gupta collapse is visible in this town as a change in whose name the local prashastis are composed.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Yashodharman”. The Sondani and Mandsaur inscriptions, in J.F. Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum vol. III (1888), nos. 33–35.
Open Yaśodharman in the repository →