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Chapter 14 – The Medieval Kingdoms of the North

648 to 1200 A.D.

I – Relations with China and Tibet

The tenacity of the Chinese government in holding on to the most distant possessions of the empire has been exemplified in recent times by the recovery of Kashgaria and Yunnan from Mohammedan powers, and of Kuldja from the Russians. The history of the seventh and eight centuries offers many illustrations of the same characteristic, and exhibits China as making the most determined efforts to exercise influence in, and assert suzerainty over, the countries on the northern frontier of India.

In the first half of the sixth century the power of China in the “Western Countries” had vanished, and the Ephthalites, or White Huns, ruled a vast empire, which included Kashgaria (the “Four Garrisons” of Chinese writers), Kashmir, and Gandhara, the region near Peshawar.

About the year 565 (“between 563 and 567”) the

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Ephthalite dominion passed into the hands of the Western Turks and Persians; but the grasp of the latter power on the provinces south of the Oxus soon relaxed, and the Turks became the heirs of the Ephthalites in the whole of their territory as far as the Indus. Accordingly, in 630 A.D., when Hiuen Tsang was on his way to India, his safety was assured by passports granted by Tong-sheshhu, the “Kazan,” or supreme chief of the Western Turks, which guaranteed him protection as far as Kapisa. In the same year the pilgrim’s powerful protector was assassinated, and the Chinese, under the guidance of the Emperor Tai-tsong, the second prince of the Tang dynasty, inflicted upon the Northern or Eastern Turks a defeat so decisive that the vanquished became slaves to the Chinese for fifty years.

When relieved from fear of the Northern Turks, the Chinese were able to turn their arms against the western tribes, and in the years 640–8 succeeded in occupying Turfan, Korashar, and Kucha, thus securing the northern road of communication between the East and West.

At this time Tibet was on amicable terms with the Middle Kingdom. In 641 the Chinese Princess Wencheng had been given in marriage to Srong-tsanGam-po, King of Tibet, and in the years 643–5 the Chinese envoys to Harsha had been able to reach India through the friendly states of Tibet and Nepal, both of which sent troops to rescue Wang-Hiuen-tse from the troubles into which he fell after Harsha’s death.

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The work of subduing the Turks, begun by the Emperor Tai-tsong, was continued by his successor, Kao-tsong (650–83), and, by the year 659, China was nominally mistress of the entire territory of the Western Turks, which was then formally annexed. In 661- 5 China enjoyed unparalleled prestige, and had reached a height of glory never again attained. Kapisa was a province of the empire, and the imperial retinue included ambassadors from Udyana, or the Suwat valley, and from all the countries extending from Persia to Korea. But this magnificent extension of the empire did not last long. A terrible defeat inflicted by the Tibetans in 670 deprived. China of Kashgaria, or the “Four Garrisons,” which remained in the hands of the victors until 692 A.D., when the province was recovered by the Chinese.

Between 682 and 691 the Northern Turks had regained a good deal of the power which had been shattered by the defeat of 630, and even exercised a certain amount of control over the western tribes. But internal dissension was at all times the bane of the Central Asian nations, and the Chinese well knew how to take advantage of the national failing. They intervened in the tribal quarrels, with the support of the Uigurs and Karluks, with such effect that in 744 the Uigurs established themselves on the Orkhon in the eastern part of the Turkish territory, while on the west the Karluks gradually occupied the country of the Ten Tribes, and took possession of Tokmak and Talas, the former residences of the Turkish chiefs.

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Between 665 and 715 the government of China was unable to interfere effectually in the affairs of the countries between the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) and the Indus, since the southern route to the west through Kashgaria had been closed by the Tibetans, and the roads over the Hindu Kush were blocked by the conquests of Kotaiba, the Arab general.

The accession of the Emperor Hiuen-tsong in 713 marks a revival of Chinese activity; and determined efforts were Made by means both of diplomacy and arms to keep open the Pamir passes and to check the ambition of the Arabs and Tibetans, who sometimes combined. In 719, Samarkand and other kingdoms invoked the aid of China against the armies of Islam, while the Arab leaders sought to obtain the co-operation of the minor states on. the Indian borderland. The chiefs of Udyana (Suwat), Khottal (west of Badakshan), and Chitral, having refused to listen to Moslem blandishments, were rewarded by the Emperor of China with letters patent conferring on each the title of king, and a similar honour was bestowed upon the rulers of Yasin (Little Po-lu), Zabulistan (Ghazni), Kapisa, and Kashmir, received investiture as king from the emperor in kingdoms, so as to form an effective barrier against both Arabs and Tibetans. Chandrapida, King of Kashmir, received investiture as king from the emperor in 720, and his brother Muktapida-Lalitaditya was similarly honoured in 733.

A few years later – in 744 and 747 – Chinese influence had been so far extended that the emperor granted

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titles to the King of Tabaristan, south of the Caspian. In the latter year a Chinese army crossed the Pamirs, in spite of all difficulties, and reduced the King of Yasin to subjection.

But, as in the seventh century, so in the eighth, the Chinese dominion over the western countries was short-lived, and was shattered by a disastrous defeat inflicted in 751 on the Chinese general Sien-chi by the Arabs, who were aided by the Karluk tribes. Indirectly this disaster had an important consequence for European civilization. The art of making paper, up to that time a monopoly of remote China, was introduced into Samarkand by Chinese prisoners, and so became known to Europe, with results familiar to all.

An Indian scene

From the middle of the eighth century, contact between the politics of India and China ceased, and was not renewed until the English conquest of Upper Burma in 1885. In these latter days, Tibet, which has been a dependency of China since the close of the thirteenth century, has again come within the purview of the Indian government, and its affairs are again the subject of Indo-Chinese diplomacy.

II – Nepal

The kingdom of Nepal, the most valuable portion of which is the enclosed valley in which Kathmandu

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and other towns are situated, although it has remained generally outside the ordinary range of Indian politics, has maintained sufficient connection with India to require brief mention in a history of that country. In Asoka’s time Nepal was an integral part of the empire, and was probably administered directly from the capital as one of the home provinces. In the days of Samudragupta, in the fourth century A.D., when we next hear of the Nepalese kingdom it was an autonomous tributary frontier state, but, after the fall of the Gupta empire in the following century, it became independent.

Harsha again reduced the kingdom to the position of a tributary state about 638 A.D., and ten years later, when he died, the Nepalese recovered their independence, subject, perhaps, to some slight control from China. They were able to give valuable assistance to the envoy Wang-Hiuen-tse in 648 A.D., when he was expelled from India by Harsha’s usurping successor. At the beginning of the eighth century, before the revival of Chinese activity in the reign of the Emperor Hiuen-tsong, Nepal was for a time a dependency of Tibet.

The establishment of the Nepalese era, which dates from October 20, 879 A.D., in the reign of Raghava-deva, probably marks some important event in local history, the exact nature of which is not known. The kingdom was never subjugated by any of the Mohammedan dynasties, and has retained its autonomy to this day. The conquest of the country by the Gurkhas took place

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in 1768. A corrupt and decaying form of Buddhism still survives in the country.

III – Kashmir

A detailed account of the history of Kashmir would fill a volume; in this place a brief notice of some of the leading passages will suffice. The valley had been included in the Maurya empire in the time of Asoka, and again in the Kushan dominion in the days of Kanishka. and Huvishka. Harsha, although not strong enough to annex Kashmir, was yet able to compel the king to surrender a cherished relic, an alleged tooth of Buddha, which was carried off to Kanauj. The authentic chronicles of the kingdom begin with the Karkota dynasty, which was founded by Durlabhavardhana during Harsha’s lifetime. This prince and his son Durlabhaka are credited with long reigns.

The latter was succeeded by his three sons in order, the eldest of whom, Chandrapida, received investiture as king from the Emperor of China in 720, by whom the third son, Muktapida, also known as Lalitaditya, was similarly honoured in 733. This prince, who is said to have reigned for thirty-six years, extended the power of Kashmir far beyond its normal mountain limits, and about the year 740 inflicted a crushing defeat upon Yasovarman, King of Kanauj. He also vanquished the Tibetans, Bhutias, and the Turks on the Indus. His memory has been perpetuated by the famous Martanda temple, which was built by him, and still exists. The acts of this king, and all that he did, and something

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more, are set forth at large in Kalhana’s chronicle.

The reign of Avantivarman in the latter part of the ninth century was notable for his enlightened patronage of literature, and for the beneficent schemes of drainage and irrigation carried out by Suyya, his minister of public works. The next king, Sankaravarman, distinguished himself in war, but is chiefly remembered as the author of an ingenious system of fiscal oppression, and the plunderer of temple treasures. The details of his exactions are worth reading as proving the capacity of an Oriental despot without a conscience for unlimited and ruthless extortion. During his reign, the last of the Turki Shahiya Kings of Kabul, the descendants of Kanishka, was overthrown by the Brahman Lalliya, who founded a dynasty which lasted until 1021, when it was extirpated by the Mohammedans.

During the latter half of the tenth century, power was in the hands of an unscrupulous queen named Didda, the granddaughter of a Shahiya king, who, first as queen-consort, then as regent, and ultimately as sovereign for twenty-three years, misgoverned the unhappy state for half a century. In the reign of her nephew, Sangrama, the kingdom suffered an attack from Mahmud of Ghazni, and, although its troops were defeated by the invader, preserved its independence, which was protected by the inaccessibility of the mountain barriers.

During the eleventh century, Kashmir, which has

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been generally unfortunate in its rulers, endured unspeakable miseries at the hands of the tyrants Kalasa and Harsha. The latter, who was evidently insane, imitated Sankaravarman in the practice of plundering temples, and rightly came to a miserable end.

A local Mohammedan dynasty obtained power in 1339, and the religion of Islam gradually spread in the valley during the fourteenth century; but the natural defences of the kingdom effectually guarded it against the ambition of the sovereigns of India, until Akbar conquered it in 1587 and incorporated it in the Mogul empire.

IV – Delhi, Kanauj, Ajmir, and Gwalior

Europeans are so accustomed to associate the name of Delhi with the sovereignty of India that they do not easily realize the fact that Delhi is among the most modern of the great Indian cities. Vague legends, it is true, irradiate the lands along the bank of the Jumna near the village of Indarpat with the traditional glories of the prehistoric Indraprastha, and these stories may or may not have some substantial basis. But, as an historical city, Delhi dates only from the middle of the eleventh century, when Anangapala, a Rajput chief of the Tomara clan, built the Red Fort, where the Kutb mosque now stands, and founded a town. The celebrated iron pillar on which the eulogy of Chandragupta Vikramaditya is incised, was removed by him from its original position, probably Mathura, and set up in 1052 A.D. as an adjunct to a group of temples,

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from the materials of which the Mohammedans afterward constructed the great mosque.

Anangapala, who seems to have come from Kanauj, ruled a principality of modest dimensions, extending to Agra on the south, Ajmir on the west, Hansi on the north, and the Gauges on the east. His dynasty lasted for just a century, until 1151 A.D., when it was supplanted by the Chauhan chief, Visala-deva of Ajmir.

The grandson of Visala-deva was Prithivi Raja, or Rai Pithora, famous in song and legend as a chivalrous lover and doughty champion, in whose person the lordships of Ajmir and Delhi were united. His fame as a bold lover rests upon his daring abduction of the not unwilling daughter of Jayachchandra (Jaichand), the Gaharwar Raja of Kanauj, which occurred in or about 1175. His reputation as a warrior is securely founded upon the story of his defeat of the Chandella raja and the capture of Mahoba in 1182, as well as upon gallant resistance to the flood of Mohammedan invasion. Rai Pithora may indeed be fairly described as the popular hero of Northern India, and his exploits in love and war are to this day the subject of rude epics and bardic lays.

The dread of the victorious Mussulman host led by Shihab-ud-din, who was now undisputed master of the Panjab, constrained the jarring states of Upper India to lay aside their quarrels and combine for a moment against the common foe. At first fortune favoured the Hindus, and in 1191 Prithivi Raja succeeded in inflicting a severe defeat upon the invaders at Tirauri, between

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Thanesar and Karnal, which forced them to retire beyond the Indus. Two years later, in 1193, Shihab-ud-din, having returned with a fresh force, again encountered Prithivi Raja, who was in command of an immense host, swollen by contingents from numerous confederate princes. A vigorous charge by twelve thousand well-armed Mussulman horsemen repeated the lesson given by Alexander long ages before, and demonstrated the incapacity of a mob of Indian militia to stand the onset of trained cavalry. To use the graphic language of the Mohammedan historian, “this prodigious army, once shaken, like a great building, tottered to its fall, and was lost in its own ruins.” Prithivi Raja, who was taken prisoner, was executed in cold blood, and the wretched inhabitants of his capital, Ajmir, were either put to the sword or sold into slavery.

In the same year, 1193 A.D. (A. H. 589), Delhi fell, and Shihab-ud-din marched against Kanauj and took that city, which had been for several centuries the most splendid of the cities of Northern India. The raja, Jayachchandra, retired toward Benares, but was overtaken by his adversary, routed, and slain. The holy citadel of Hinduism fell into the hands of the victors, who could now feel assured that the triumph of Islam was secure.

The surrender of Gwalior by its Parihar raja in 1196, the capture of Nahrwalah in 1197, and the capitulation of Kalinjar in 1203 completed the reduction of Upper India, and when Shihab-ud-din died in 1206, Elphinstone says he “held, in different degrees of

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subjection, the whole of Hindustan Proper, except Malwa and some contiguous districts. Sind and Bengal were either entirely subdued, or in rapid course of reduction. On Gujarat he had no hold, except what is implied in the possession of the capital (Nahrwalah, or Anhalwara). Much of Hindustan was immediately under his officers, and the rest under dependent or at least tributary princes. The desert and some of the mountains were left independent from neglect.”

An important consequence of the capture of Kanauj was the migration of the bulk of the Gaharwar clan to the deserts of Marwar in Rajputana, where they settled, and became known as Rathors. The state so founded, now generally designated by the name of its capital, Jodhpur, is one of the most important principalities of Rajputana. Similar clan movements, necessitated by the pressure of Mohammedan armies, were frequent at this period, and to a large extent account for the existing distribution of the Rajput clans.

V - The Chandellas of Jejakabhukti and the Kalachuris of Chedi

The ancient name of the province between the Jumna and Narmada, now known as Bundelkhand, was Jejakabhukti, and the extensive region farther to the south, which is now under the administration of the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces, nearly corresponds with the old kingdom of Chedi. In the medieval history of these countries two dynasties, the Chandellas and the Kalachuris, which occasionally were

The Fort, Gwalior

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Sas Bahu Temple, Gwalior

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connected by marriage, and constantly were in contact whether as friends or as enemies, are conspicuous.

The Chandellas, like several other dynasties, first come into notice early in the ninth century, when Nannuka Chandella, about 831 A.D., overthrew a Parihar chieftain, and became lord of Jejakabhukti. The Parihar capital had been at Mau-Sahaniya between Now-gong (Naugaon) and Chhatarpur. The predecessors of the Parihars were Gaharwar Rajas, members of the clan which afterward gave Kanauj the line of kings commonly miscalled Rathors.

The Chandella princes were great builders, and beautified their chief towns, Mahoba, Kalinjar, and Khajuraho, with many magnificent temples and lovely lakes, formed by throwing massive dams across the openings between the hills. In this practice of building embankments and constructing lakes the Chandellas were imitators of the Gaharwars, who are credited with the formation of some of the most charming lakes in Bundelkhand.

King Dhanga (950–99 A.D.), who lived to an age of more than a hundred years, was the most notable of his family. Some of the grandest temples at Khajuraho are due to his munificence, and he took an active part in the politics of his time. In 978 A.D. he joined the league formed by Jaipal to resist Sabuktigin, and shared with the Rajas of Ajmir and Kanauj in the disastrous defeat which the allies suffered from the invaders at Lamghan on the Kabul River.

When Mahmud of Ghazni threatened to overrun

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India, Dhanga’s son, Ganda (999–1025), joined the new confederacy of Hindu princes organized by Ananga Pala of Lahore in 1008, which also failed to stay the hand of the invader. Twelve years later Ganda attacked Kanauj and killed the raja, who had made terms with the Mohammedans, but in 1022 or 1023 he was himself compelled to surrender the strong fortress of Kalinjar to Mahmud.

Gangeyadeva Kalachuri of Chedi (cir. 1015–40), the contemporary of Ganda and his successors, was an able and ambitious prince, who seems to have aimed at attaining the position of paramount power in Upper India. In 1019 his suzerainty was recognized in distant Tirhut, and his projects of aggrandizement were taken up and proceeded with by his son Karnadeva (cir. 1040–70), who joined Bhima, King of Gujarat, in crushing Bhoja, the learned King of Malwa, about 1053 A.D.

But some years later, Karnadeva was taught the lesson of the mutability of fortune by suffering a severe defeat at the hands of Kirttivarman Chandella (1049–1100), who widely extended the dominion of his house. Kirttivarman is also memorable in literary history as the patron of the curious allegorical play entitled the Prabodhachandrodaya, or “Rise of the Moon of Intellect,” which was performed at his court, and gives in dramatic form a very clever exposition of the Vedanta system of philosophy.

The last Chandella king to play any considerable part upon the stage of history was Paramardi, or Parmal (1165–1203), whose reign is memorable for his

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Temple of Mahadeva, Kajuraho

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defeat in 1182 by Prithivi Raja Chauhan, and for the capture of Kalinjar in 1203 (A. H. 599) by Kutb-ud-din Ibak. The Chauhan and Chandella war occupies a large space in the popular Hindi epic, the Chand-Raisa, which is familiar to the people of Upper India.

The account of the death of Parmal and the capture of Kalinjar, as told by the contemporary Mohammedan historian, may be quoted as a good illustration of the process by which the Hindu kingdoms passed under the rule of their new Moslem masters.

“The accursed Parmar,’ the Rai of Kalinjar, fled into the fort after a desperate resistance in the field, and afterward surrendered himself, and placed ‘the collar of subjection’ round his neck, and, on his promise of allegiance, was admitted to the same favours as his ancestor had experienced from Mahmud Sabuktigin, and’ engaged to make a payment of tribute and elephants, but he died a natural death before he could execute any of his engagements. His Diwan, or Mahtea, by name Aj Deo, was not disposed to surrender so easily as his master, and gave his enemies much trouble, until he was compelled to capitulate, in consequence of severe drought which dried up all the reservoirs of water in the forts. ‘On Monday, the 20th of Rajab, the garrison, in an extreme state of weakness and distraction, came out of the fort, and by compulsion left their native place empty; . . . and the fort of Kalinjar, which was celebrated throughout the world for being as strong as the wall of Alexander,’ was taken. The temples were converted into mosques

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and abodes of goodness, and the ejaculations of the bead-counters and the voices of the summoners to prayer ascended to the highest heaven, and the very name of idolatry was annihilated. . . . Fifty thousand men came under the collar of slavery, and the plain became black as pitch with Hindus.’ Elephants and cattle, and countless arms also, became the spoil of the victors.

“The reins of victory were then directed toward Mahoba, and the government of Kalinjar was conferred on Hazabbar-ud-din Hasan Arnal. When Kutb-ud-din was satisfied with all the arrangements made in that quarter, he went toward Badaun, ‘which is one of the mothers of cities, and one of the chiefest of the country of Hind.’ ”

Chandella rajas lingered on as purely local chiefs until the sixteenth century, but their affairs are of no general interest. The Chandella clan was scattered, and its most notable modern representative is the Raja of Gidhaur, near Mungir (Monghyr) in Bengal.

The Kalachuri or Haihaya Rajas of Chedi are last mentioned in an inscription of the year 1181 A.D., and the manner of their disappearance is not exactly known, but there is reason to believe that they were supplanted by the Baghels of Rewa. The Hayobans Rajputs of the Baliya District in the United Provinces claim descent from the Rajas of Ratanpur in the Central Provinces, and are probably really an offshoot of the ancient Haihaya race. The Kings of Chedi used a special era, according to which the year 1 was equivalent

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to 249–50 A.D., and it is possible that the dynasty may have been established at that early date, but nothing substantial is known about it before the ninth century.

VI. Paramaras of Malwa

The Paramara dynasty of Malwa, the region north of the Narmada, anciently known as the kingdom of Ujjain, is specially memorable by reason of its association with many eminent names in the history of later Sanskrit literature. The dynasty was founded by a chief named Upendra, or Krishnaraja, at the beginning of the ninth century, when so many ruling families attract notice for the first time, and lasted for about four centuries.

The seventh raja, named Munja, who was famous for his learning and eloquence, was not only a patron of poets, but was himself a poet of no small reputation, and the anthologies include various compositions attributed to his pen. The authors Dhanamjaya, Dhanika, and Halayudha were among the distinguished scholars who graced his court. His energies were not solely devoted to the peaceful pursuit of literature, however, as the Chalukya King Taila II was defeated by him sixteen times. The seventeenth attack failed, and Munja, who had crossed the Godavari, Taila’s northern boundary, was defeated, captured, and executed about 995 A.D.

The nephew of Munja, the famous Bhoja, ascended the throne of Dhara, which was in those days the capital

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of Malwa, about 1010 A.D., and reigned gloriously for more than forty years. Although his fights with the neighbouring powers, including one of the Mohammedan armies of Mahmud of Ghazni, are now forgotten, his fame as an enlightened patron of learning and a skilled author remains undimmed, and his name has become proverbial as that of the model king Works on astronomy, architecture, the art of poetry, and other subjects are credibly attributed to him, and there is no doubt that he was a prince, like Samudragupta, of very uncommon ability.

Ruins of the temple of Bhojpur

The great Bhojpur Lake, a beautiful sheet of water to the southeast of Bhopal, covering an area of 250 square miles, formed by massive embankments

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closing the outlets in a circle of hills, was his noblest monument, and continued to testify to the skill of his engineers until the fifteenth century, when the dam was cut by order of a Mohammedan king, and the water drained off. The bed of the lake is now a fertile plain intersected by the Indian Midland Railway.

About 1053 A.D. this accomplished prince succumbed to an attack by the confederate Kings of Gujarat and Chedi, and the glory of his house departed5. His dynasty lasted as a purely local power until the beginning of the thirteenth century, when it was superseded by chiefs of the Tomara clan, who were in their turn followed by Chauhan rajas, from whom the crown passed to Mohammedan kings in 1401. Akbar suppressed the local dynasty in 1569, and incorporated Malwa into the -Mogul empire.

VII. Pala and Sena Dynasties of Bihar and Bengal

Harsha, when at the height of his power, exercised a certain amount of control as suzerain over the whole of Bengal, even as far east as the distant kingdom of Kamarupa, or Assam, and seems to have possessed full sovereign authority over Western and Central Bengal. After his death, the local rajas no doubt asserted their independence; but, except for the strange story of Arjuna and Wang-Hiuen-tse, related in the thirteenth

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chapter, no particulars are known concerning the history of Bengal during more than a century and a half.

Early in the ninth century (cir. 815 A.D.), approximately when the Chandella, Paramara, and other dynasties are first heard of, a chieftain named Gopala became ruler of Bengal. Toward the close of his life he extended his power westwards over Magadha or Bihar, and is said to have reigned forty-five years. He was a pious Buddhist, and was credited with the foundation of a great monastery at his capital, the town of Bihar (Udandapura, or Otantapuri), which had taken the place of Pataliputra, then in ruins. Inasmuch as the word pala was an element in the personal names of the founder of the family and his successors, the dynasty is commonly and conveniently designated as that of the “Pala Kings of Bengal.”

The third king, Devapala (cir. 853–93 A.D.), is alleged to have conquered Kamarupa and Orissa. The ninth king, Mahipala, is known to have been on the throne in 1026 A.D., and is believed to have reigned for fifty years, until about 1060. Like all the members of his dynasty, he was a devout Buddhist, and the revival of Buddhism in Tibet, effected in 1013 A.D. by Dharmapala of Magadha and his three pupils, may be attributed to this king’s missionary zeal.

At about the time of Mahipala’s death, a raja named Vijayasena founded a rival dynasty in Bengal commonly called that of the “Sena kings,” which seems to have wrested the eastern provinces for a time from

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the hands of the Pala dynasty, the power of which was then much circumscribed. Gangeyadeva of Chedi, as has been already mentioned, was recognized as the sovereign of Tirhut in 1076 A.D. But his supremacy did not last long, and an independent local dynasty of Northern Tirhut was established at Simraon early in the thirteenth century.

In Bihar and Bengal both “Palas” and “Senas” were swept away by the torrent of Mohammedan invasion at the end of the twelfth century, when Kutb-ud-din’s general, Mohammed, the son of Bakhtiyar, stormed Bihar in 1193 A.D. (A.H. 589), and surprised Nudiah (vulgo Nuddea) in the following year. The name of the last Hindu ruler of Bihar is given by tradition as Indradyumna, who is supposed, but not proved, to have belonged to the Pala line.

The Mussulman general, who had already made his name a terror by repeated plundering expeditions in Bihar, seized the capital by a daring stroke. The almost contemporary historian met one of the survivors of the attacking party in 1243 A.D., and learned from him that the fort of Bihar was seized by a party of only two hundred horsemen, who boldly rushed the postern gate and gained possession of the place. Great quantities of plunder were obtained, and the slaughter of the “shaven-headed Brahmans,” that is to say, the Buddhist monks, was so thoroughly completed that, when the victor sought for someone capable of explaining the contents of the books in the libraries of the monasteries, not a living man could be found who

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was able to read them. “It was discovered,” we are told, “that the whole fort and city was a place of study.”

This crushing blow, followed up, of course, by similar acts of violence, destroyed the vitality of Buddhism in its ancient home. No doubt a few devout though disheartened adherents of the system lingered round the desecrated shrines for a few years longer, and even to this day traces of the religion once so proudly dominant may be discerned in the practices of obscure sects; but Buddhism as a popular religion in Bihar, its last abode in Upper India south of the Himalaya, was destroyed once and for all by the sword of a single Mussulman adventurer. Many monks who escaped death fled to Tibet, Nepal, and Southern India.

The overthrow of the “Sena” dynasty was accomplished with equal or even greater ease. The ruler of Eastern Bengal .in those days was an aged king, called Rai Lakhmaniya by the Mohammedan writer, and was reputed to have occupied the throne for eighty years. His family, we are told, was respected by all the Rais, or chiefs, of Hindustan, and he was considered to hold the rank of khalif (caliph), or sovereign. Trustworthy persons affirmed that no one, great or small, ever suffered injustice at his hands, and his generosity was proverbial.

This much-respected sovereign held his court at Nudiah, situated in the upper delta of the Ganges, on the Bhagirathi River, about sixty miles north of the site of Calcutta. The town still gives its name to a

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British district, and is renowned as the seat of a Hindu college organized after the ancient manner.

The year after his facile conquest of Bihar, Mohammed, the son of Bakhtiyar, equipped an army for the subjugation of Bengal. Riding in advance, he suddenly appeared before Nudiah with a slender following of eighteen horsemen, and boldly entered the city. The people supposed him to be a horse-dealer, but when he reached the gate of the Rai’s palace, he drew his sword and attacked the unsuspecting household. The Rai, who was at his dinner, was completely taken by surprise, “and fled barefooted by the rear of the palace; and his whole treasure, and all his wives, maid-servants, attendants, and women, fell into the hands of the invader. Numerous elephants were taken, and such booty was obtained by the Mohammedans as is beyond all compute. When his (Mohammed’s) army arrived, the whole city was brought under subjection, and he fixed his headquarters there.”

Rai Lakhmaniya fled to the shrine of Jagannath (Juggernaut) in Orissa, where he died. The conqueror presently destroyed the city of Nudiah, and established the seat of his government at Lakhnauti. Mosques, colleges, and Mohammedan monasteries were endowed by him and his officers in all pa-its of the kingdom, and a great portion of the spoil was judiciously sent to his distant chief, Kutb-ud-din.

Such was the dishonoured end of the last Hindu kingdoms of Bengal and Bihar, which would have made a better fight for life if they had deserved to exist.

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The administration of the aged Lakhmaniya must have been hopelessly inefficient to permit a foreign army to march unobserved across Bengal, and to allow of the surprise of the palace by an insignificant party of eighteen horsemen.

Notwithstanding the manifest .rottenness of their system of government, the “Sena” kings were sufficiently conceited to establish a special era of their own, which they called by the name of Lakshmana-sena. The first current year, according to this computation, corresponded with 1119–20 A.D., and the epoch was apparently the date of either the accession or coronation of Lakshmana-sena, who seems to have been identical with the aged Rai Lakhmaniya of the Mohammedan historians. One form of the tradition represents this king as having come to the throne in 510 A. H., equivalent to 1116 -17 A.D., just eighty lunar years previous to the easy victory of the Moslem invader, and the era was invented presumably to mark the date of Lakshmana-sena’s coronation in October, 1119 A.D.

View of Saswar, in the Deccan, Southeast of Poona

Footnotes

5. Bhoja Paramara of Dhara must not be confounded with the numerous distinct rajas of the same name. Bhoja, a King of Kanauj late in the ninth century, was a specially notable personage.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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