India, Sept. 9 -- History often remembers the destroyers of kingdoms but forgets the makers of dynasties, much like Shahi, India's native bulwark, who single handed bore the brunt of Ghaznavid until they were vanquished and faded into the hills of Kangra. For too long, the White Huns, or Hephthalites, have been cast in the former role-a destructive force that contributed to the fall of the Gupta Empire. However, a groundbreaking new work, Varaha: Hunnic Migration to Hind by Amit Singh, meticulously traces a far more fascinating and enduring legacy: the White Huns as the foundational source of a dynasty that guarded India's frontier for over half a millennium.

The book's central, and most compelling, thesis is the establishment of a direc...