Page:The Pālas of Bengal.djvu/14

44 story of the banished king, Jayāpīḍa, who came to Bengal, married the daughter of the king, and freed him from the subjection of his liege-lord. According to the able translator of the Rājataraṅginī, the true date of this king is between 760 and 800 A.D. Finally Bengal was conquered by the Gurjara and Rāṣṭrakūṭa kings. The Gurjara king Vatsarāja, according to the Gwalior inscription of Mihira-Bhoja, had seized by main force the imperial sway from the house of Bhāṇḍi:—


 * Khyātād = Bhāṇḍi-kulān = madotkaṭa-kari-prākāra durllaṅghato yaḥ sāmrājyam = adhijya-kārmmuka-sakhā saṁkhye haṭhād = agrahīt—verse 7.

Most probably after the fall of Harṣavarddhana, the family of his cousin Bhaṇḍi succeeded to the Empire. Bhaṇḍi is mentioned in the Harṣacarita as the mother's brother's son of Harṣa. Vatsarāja is said to have conquered Bengal very easily and taken away from its king the radiantly white royal umbrellas. In the Wani grant of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Govinda III, his father Dhruvarāja is said to have taken away these umbrellas from Vatsarāja and driven him away into the desert:—

"Having with his armies, which no other army could withstand, quickly caused Vatsarāja, intoxicated with the goddess of the sovereignty of the country of Gauḍa, that he had acquired with ease, to enter upon the path of misfortune in the centre of the deserts or Maru, he took away from him not only the two royal umbrellas of Gauḍa, that were as radiantly white as the rays of the autumn moon, but almost, at the same moment, his fame that had reached to the extremities of the regions."

The late Mr. A. M. T. Jackson supposed that the country conquered by Vatsarāja was Thanesar. But the Gurjara king conquered Gauḍa and Vaṅga at the same time and the two umbrellas were, most probably, one for Gauḍa and the other for Vaṅga like the double crown of Egypt:—


 * Gauḍendra-Vaṅgapati nirjjaya-durvvidagdha sad = gurjjareśvara dig = arggalatāṁ ca yasya,
 * Nītvā bhujaṁ vihata-mālava-rakṣaṇārthaṁ svāmī tath = ānyam-api rājya-phalām bhuṅkte.—Baroda plates of Karkarāja.

The Radhanpur grant also contains the verse about the defeat of Vatsarāja by Dhruva. So according to the Wani and Radhanpur grants Dhruva, father of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Govinda III, drove Vatsarāja back into the desert, and wrested from him the double royal umbrellas of Gauḍa, and according to the Baroda grant