Page:The Pālas of Bengal.djvu/20

50 Govinda III's certain dates range from 794 to 813 A.D. Consequently Dharmmapāla must be placed in the last decades of the eighth and the first decades of the ninth century A.D.

The most important event in the reign of Dharmmapāla is his conquest of Northern India. The Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Dhruva had driven Gurjara invaders back into the desert and the Rāṣṭrakūṭa occupation of the country most probably did not last long, otherwise there would not have been any necessity of a fresh invasion under Govinda III. The whole of Northern India most probably relapsed into that restless state which necessitated the election of a strong ruler in Bengal. On his accession, an able man like Dharmmapāla practically found the whole country at his mercy. The ancient race of Bhaṇḍi had been ousted from the throne by Vatsarāja, Nāgabhaṭa's father, and a king named Indrāyudha was reigning at Mahodaya or Kanauj in the Vikrama year 705 = 783 A.D. It may be that he also belonged to the family of Bhaṇḍi. When we remember that according to the verse of the Bhagalpur grant of Nārāyaṇapāla, Dhrammapāla ousted a king of Kanauj named Indrarāja and gave the kingdom to Cakrāyudha, we feel certain that this Indrāyudha is no other than the Indrarāja of the Bhagalpur grant.

Dharmmapāla's Northern Indian campaign must have begun some time after 783 A.D. In the Jaina Harivaṁśa Purāṇa we find that in the year 705 of the Śaka era Indrāyudha was ruling in the North, Śrī-Vallabha in the South, the Lord of Avanti in the East, and Vatsarāja in the West:—

We know already from the Wani and Radhanpur grants that Dhruva, Śri Vallabha and Vatsarāja were contemporaries. In the year 783 Dhruva must have been in his old age, and long before that he must have driven Vatsarāja back into the desert country from Kanauj and Bengal as the latter is only mentioned as ruler of the West. Again, as Indrarāja or Indrāyudha was reigning in the North in 783, so Dharmmapāla's Northern Indian campaign must have taken place after that year. As has been already stated above, Dhruva and Vatsarāja seem to have had very long reigns. The invasion of Northern India by these two kings seems to have taken place during the earlier parts of their reigns. Bengal most probably enjoyed about fifty years' respite from foreign invasions before Dharmmapāla came to the throne. Though Indrāyudha, the contemporary of Dhruva and Vatsarāja, was dispossessed of his throne by Dharmmapāla, yet it appears that both of these kings died before Dharmmapāla's accession, as their sons, Nāgabhaṭa II and Govinda III, are mentioned in the inscriptions as his contemporaries. The first act of Dharmmapāla