Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/56

 26 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. feted, and sent away laden with gifts and mementoes of the magnificence and liberality of the great king. Pleasant as this picture is to look upon, it is evident that such a state of affairs could hardly be stable, and it was in vain to expect that peace could long be maintained between a rising and ambitious sect, and one which was fast sinking into decay ; apparently beneath the load of an overgrown priest- hood. Accordingly we find that ten years after the death of Harsha troubles supervened as prophesied, 1 and the curtain soon descends on the great drama of the history of northern India, not to be raised again for nearly three centuries. It is true, we can still follow the history of the Valabhis for some time longer, and it would be satisfactory if we could fix the date of their destruction with precision, as it was the event which in the Hindu mind is considered the closing act of the drama. If it was destroyed by a foreign enemy, it must have been by the Moslim perhaps by some expedition under Amru ibn Jamal, the general of Hasham, ibn Amru al Taghlabi, who was ruler of Sindh about 757 to 776. 2 Valabhi was a flourishing city in 640, when visited by Hiuen Tsiang, and from that time, till the end of next century, the Moslims were in such power on the Indus, and their historians tell us the events of these years in such detail, that no other foreigner could have crossed the river during that period. If it perished by some internal revolution of convulsion, which is probable, it only shared the fate that overtook all northern India about this period. Strange to say, even the Moslims, then in the plenitude of their power during the Khalifat of Baghdad, retired from their Indian conquests, as if the seething cauldron were too hot for even them to exist within its limits. The more southern dynasty of the Western Chalukyas seem to have retained their power down to about 757, and may, up to that time, have exercised a partial sway to the north of the Narbada, but after that we lose all sight of them for more than two centuries till 973 when the dynasty was restored under Taila II.; while, as a closing act in the great drama, the ' Rajatarangini ' boastfully represents the king of Kashmir Lalitaditya Muktapida (cir. 725-762) as defeating Yajovarman of Kanauj, conquering India from north to south, and subjecting all the five kingdoms, into which it was nominally divided, to his imperious sway. We need not stop now to enquire whether this was exactly 1 'Vie et Voyages de Hiouen Thsang,' 'Elliot and Dowson's 'History of trans, by Stanislas Julien, torn. i. p. 215 ; India,' vol. i. p. 444. or Beal, ' Life of Hiuen Tsiang,' p. 156.