History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c34.s6.14

v3.c34.s6.14

Govindachandra who was in possession of Benares as we already know. In this inscription it is stated that he was an incarnation of Hari who was asked by Hara to protect Vārāṇasi defiled from Turushka soldiers.* Stein Konow thinks that this indicates that there were raids on Benares in the days of Govindachandra. But the sense of the above line may be taken as protecting Benares polluted (already) from Turkish soldiers. It would not be proper to connect "from Turkish soldiers" with the word protect; for the word polluted as applied to Benares would be unmeaning unless we take the above expression with the word 'polluted' and say that the pollution came from Turkish soldiers. This inscription no doubt confirms the fact that Benares was raided once by Turkish soldiers but it refers to past pollution and we may well take this as a reference to the raid by Ahmed Niatagin. In the translation given by Konow the word 'dushtām' or polluted seems to have been omitted by oversight (verse 16 p. 327).