Zunbil, also written as Zhunbil, or Rutbils of Zabulistan,[3] was a royal dynasty south of the Hindu Kush in present southern Afghanistan region.

According to the interpretation of Chinese sources by Marquarts and de Groots in 1915, the king of Ts'ao is said to have worn a crown with a golden fish head and was related to the Sogdians.

[12][1] According to André Wink the god Zhun was primarily Hindu, though parallels have also been noted with pre-Buddhist religious and monarchy practices in Tibet and had Zoroastrian influence in its ritual.

[15] Their territory included between what is now the city of Zaranj in southwestern Afghanistan and Kabulistan in the northeast, with Zamindawar and Ghazni serving as their capitals.

[17] During more than two centuries of their rule, the Tokhara Yabghus, followed by the Turk Shahis and the Zunbils were consistently an obstacle to the eastward expansion of Muslims forces.

[18] In 653-4 AD, an army of around 6,000 Arabs was led by general Abd al-Rahman ibn Samura of the Rashidun Caliphate, and they arrived to the shrine of Zoon in Zamindawar.

It is reported that Samura "broke off a hand of the idol and plucked out the rubies which were its eyes in order to persuade the marzbān of Sīstān of the god's worthlessness.

[1][21][18] But the Turkic ruler Barha Tegin was soon able to mount a counter-offensive and repulse the Arabs, taking back the areas of Kabul and Zabulistan (around Ghazni), as well as the region of Arachosia as far as Kandahar, and founding the new dynasty of the Turk Shahis circa 665 AD.

[8][24][5] Rutbil and the king of Kabul campaigned together against the Arabs after Abdur Rahman ibn Samura was replaced as the governor of Sistan.

Rabi ibn Ziyad al-Harithi upon assuming governorship in 671 CE attacked Rutbil at Bost, and drove him to al-Rukhkhaj.

[5] In 680-683 AD, Rutbil split from his brother the Shahi of Kabul according to al-Tabari, and established the Zunbil dynasty, paying temporary allegiance to Salm ibn Ziyad, the Arab governor of Sistan.

z’wlst’n / ’pl plm’n yzd’n His Highness the Majestic Lord / [minted in his] 15th [regnal year in] Zavulistan, by the order of the gods.

Some believe that the Sunagir temple mentioned by the famous Chinese traveler Xuanzang in 640 AD pertains to this exact house of worship.

[29] In 698 Ubayd Allah ibn Abi Bakra, governor of Sijistan and a military commander of the Umayyad Caliphate, led an 'Army of Destruction' against the Zunbils.

He was defeated and was forced to offer a large tribute, give hostages including three of his sons, and take an oath not to invade the territory of the Zunbils again.

[31] The Arabs regularly claimed nominal overlordship over the Zunbils, and in 711 Qutayba ibn Muslim managed to force them to pay tribute.

[32] The Bactrian inscription of Tang-i Safedak, dated to around 714/15 CE, mentions the dedication of a stupa by Alkhis, son of Khuras, lord of "Gazan", thought to be Ghazni.

[35][36] "(It was) the year 492, the month Sbol, when I, Alkhis son of Khuras, lord of Gazan, established this stupa (as) a (pious) foundation(?)

, and afterwards I made this Zinaiaka-deyadharma in the willing belief which I had towards the huddha-sastra and in great faith (Sraddha) and in ... Whatever merit (punya ) may arise hereby, now and (in) the future, may I, Alkhis, and my parents and wife and brothers (and) sons and (other) relatives too-may each (and) every one (of us) attain (his) own desire.

When a young brother of the Yabghu Pantu Nili, named Puluo (僕羅 Púluó in Chinese sources), visited the court of the Tang dynasty in Xi'an in 718 AD, he gave an account of the military forces in the Tokharistan region.

[38] Part of the Chinese entry for this account by Puluo is: On the Dingwei day of the eleventh month in the sixth year of the Kaiyuan era, Ashi Tegin Puluo writes to the emperor: Tokhara Yabghu, his elder brother, is controlling as his subordinates two hundred and twelve persons, such as the local kings of various states, dudu (Governors-General), and cishi (heads of regional governments).

Their envoys came to the royal court several times until the Tianbao era (742–756).In 726 CE, the Korean Buddhist monk Hyecho visited Zabulistan (谢䫻国 Xiėyùguó) and recorded that Kabul and Zabul were ruled by Turkic kings, who followed Buddhism.

[51] This construction period was possibly marked by the patronage of Alkhis, a contemporary ruler of the Zabul area who was probably of the same ethnicity as the nearby Turk Shahis of Kabul and a member of the Zunbils,[36] or his successors.

[54] The Muslim historian Ya'qubi (died 897/8) in his Ta'rikh ("History"), recounts that al-Mahdi asked for, and apparently obtained, the submission of various Central Asian rulers, including that of the Zunbils.

[58] In 815 CE, the Abbasids led by caliph Al-Ma'mun defeated the Kabul branch of the Turk Shahis in 815 CE, in what was essentially a political retribution: hoping to take advantage of the Great Abbasid Civil War (811-819 AD), the Turk Shahi ruler, named "Pati Dumi" in Arab sources, had invaded parts of Khorasan.

[63] The Hindu Shahis, setting up defenses in Gandhara, continued the resistance to the eastern expansion of Islam until circa 1026 CE.

In his travel diaries, the Chinese monk Xuanzang reported in the early 700s that the temple of the Indo-Iranian god Zun/Sun(Surya) was in the region.

[64] In 726 CE, the Korean Buddhist monk Hyecho visited Zabulistan (谢䫻国 Xiėyùguó) and recorded that Kabul and Zabul were ruled by Turkic kings, who followed Buddhism.

[15] Zhun has been linked with the Hindu god Aditya at Multan, pre-Buddhist religious and kingship practices of Tibet as well as Shaivism.

Žun, Like Zurvān, most likely represented the "god of time", a heresy in Zoroastrianism, which originated in response to the religious reforms introduced during second half of Achaemenid Empire.