Page:The Pālas of Bengal.djvu/39

Rh Gupta era as in that case it would be equal to 1207 A.D., which is certainly too late. The Kalacuri-Cedī era has never been found to have been used in Bengal. The Śaka era suits best though it has but been sparsely used in the North-East. In that case S. 888 = 966 A.D. falls just after the reign of Devapāla, the Pratihāra King of Kanauj. At that time the invaders must have settled down so that the invasion itself must have taken place some time earlier. Northern Bengal was in the undisputed possession of Nārāyaṇapāla at the time of the incision of Guravamiśra's record. So this invasion must have taken place some time between 850-950 A.D. The irruption of these Mongolian hordes must have taken place through the Himalayas, and most probably they were dispossessed of their former homes in the hills by some other invaders. So the Pālas after Nārāyaṇapāla, i.e. Rajyapāla, Gopāla II, and Vigrahapāla II, were having a rather bad time of it with the Gurjara Empire in the West and occasional Rāṣṭrakūṭa raids thrown in, and with Barbarian hordes advancing in untold numbers through the mountain passes of the North. No wonder that Magadha was annexed to the Gurjara-Pratihāra Empire. At the time of the invasion of Indra III, the Eastern Frontier of the Gurjara-Pratihāra Empire most probably extended right up to the modern Bhagirathi, and its confluence near Saugor Island. North Bengal must have remained in the possession of the Mongolian kings up to the end of the tenth century A.D. In the beginning of the eleventh century we find that the Pālas have recovered possession of Northern Bengal, and from this time onwards right up to the end of the second Pāla Empire, Northern Bengal continued to be in their possession. At the time of the Dinajpur inscription the Pālas seem to have been deprived of Gauḍa and consequently the Mongolian king became Gauḍeśvara. The name Kāmboja itself is of great interest. Thus far the Kāmbojas or Kamvojas were known to be a northern tribe who lived side by side with the Greeks in Afghanistan and the Western Punjab, as shown by the phrase "Yona-Kāmbojesu" in the XIII Rock Edict of Asoka. The occurrence of the name in a Bengal inscription does not mean that the Kāmbojas, whole or part, immigrated into Bengal from the Punjab across the whole of Northern India, because that would have been an impossibility in those days but shows that all Mongolians were called Kāmbojas, and that people with Mongolian features crossed over into Bengal through the Northern Mountains and as Kāmbojas. They may or may not have been a part of the people who became known during the Maurya period as the Kāmbojas.

The occupation of Gauḍa by a barbarian tribe, at a time when the whole of Magadha was in the possession of the Gurjaras, shows that the kings of the Pāla dynasty between Nārāyaṇapāla and Vigrahapāla II and Mahīpāla I were kings in name only. Most probably they ruled over an insignficant kingdom surrounded by a large number of petty monarchies. The Tirumalai inscription of Rajendra Coḷa I shows that the ancient Gauḍa and Vaṅga had become divided into a large number of small kingdoms. The exact state and extent of the Pāla dominions under