The sea kings
The Saindhavas held the western horn of the Saurashtra peninsula, a coast of creeks and small harbours facing the Arabian Sea. Their charters give them the title aparasamudrādhipati, lord of the western ocean, and refer to naval action — an unusual emphasis in Indian royal titulature, and a plausible one given their position.
The name Saindhava suggests an origin in Sindh, ancient India (modern-day Pakistan), and the dynasty appears in the period when Arab power was established there. Their coast was exposed to raiding from that direction, and the naval claim may reflect the defence of it.
The record
A group of copper plates from the Ghumli region gives the dynastic succession over some six generations. The family was subordinate to the Pratihāras for much of its existence and was absorbed in the tenth century, probably by the Chāpas or the emerging Chudasamas.
Their significance is chiefly as evidence that the western seaboard had its own political and military life, oriented toward the sea, in a period when Indian dynastic history is usually written from the interior.
Further reading
- Hawley, John Stratton. A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. Harvard University Press, 2015
- Nilakanta Sastri, K. A. The Colas. University of Madras, 1955
- Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta. A History of South India. Oxford University Press, 1955
- Sen, Tansen. Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade. University of Hawaii Press, 2003
- Wink, Andre. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Brill, 1990
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.