Page:The Pālas of Bengal.djvu/29

Rh inscription is dated Vikrama Samvat 918 = 861 A.D., states that his father Kakka gained fame in a fight with the Gauḍas at Mudgagiri:—

Kakka seems to have accompanied Bhoja in his expedition against Bengal. As his son Bauka was alive in 861 A.D., Bhoja I and Kakka must have invaded Bengal a few years earlier, and this invasion must have taken place during the earlier years of Nārāyaṇapāla.

The statements of the Gwalior inscription of Bhoja I and the Mandor inscription of the Pratīhāra Kakkuka lead one to believe that there was a great war between the first Pratīhāra Emperor Bhoja I and the Pāla Emperor Vigrahapāla I or Nārāyaṇapāla of Gauḍa and VaṇgaVaṅga [sic]. This fact coupled with the discovery at least of three inscriptions mentioning the reign of the Emperor Mahendrapāla, the son of Bhoja I, in Magadha of Southern Bihar and one copper-plate in Tirhut, proves that the Province of Magadha was for a time added to the vast Empire of the Pratīhāras, either during the war of Bhoja I or after it.

We have positive evidence of the fact that the city of Gayā was in the possession of Nārāyaṇapāla up to the seventh year of his reign, because in that year a man named Bhāṇḍadeva erected a monastery for ascetics in that city. Up to the seventeenth year of Nārāyaṇapāla, Mudgagiri was in his possession as his grant was issued from that place in that year. From this grant we learn that at least a part of Tīrabhūkti or Mithilā continued to be in the possession of Nārāyaṇapāla. The Pratīhāra Kakka most probably gained renown during the siege of the famous fort of Mudgagiri or Mungir.

It appears that during the long reigns of Amoghavarṣa I and Bhoja I,—and they were to some extent contemporaries,—the Gurjaras had not come into collision with the Rāṣṭrakūṭas. In the Sirur and Nilgund inscriptions of Amoghavarṣa I, that monarch claims to have been worshipped by the kings of Vaṇga, Aṅga, Magadha, Mālava and Veṇgi:—

The kings of Vaṅga, Aṅga and Magadha were most probably one and the same person, one of the Pālas, either Vigrahapāla I or Nārāyaṇapāla. Amoghavarṣa I must have invaded Magadha and Vaṅga through Orissa, or otherwise he must have come into conflict with the Gurjaras who were then occupying most of Northern India, but of this no record has been discovered up to date.

But as we have seen above, the Gurjaras succeeded in annexing Magadha and most probably Tīrabhūkti or Tirhut permanently to their dominions and succeeded in keeping them till the rise of the Cedis under Karṇṇadeva, when Mahīpāla I