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RASTRAKUTA-PRATIHARA PERIOD
The Arabs on the north-west frontier were kept at bay; Sindh had been wrested from them. Madhyadesa was at the height of its power'.-(The Age of Imperial Kanauj, Foreword, ' xiii).
Mihira Bhoja was succeeded by his son Mahendrapala, a fearless military genius, who extended his father's empire to the Karnal district in the Punjab, the Nepalese terrain and the Rajasahi district of Bengal. In 910 A D. he was succeeded by Mahipala, who also, like his father, was educated by the poet Rajasekhara.
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Within a few years of Mahipala's coming to the throne of Kanauj, however, Indra III, the Rastraküța Emperor, marched to the North and occupied Kanauj. Though the Rastaküţa empire was disintegrating in 940 A.D., Kṛṣpa III again re-appeared in the North, overrran Malava and Gurjaradeśa, and gave a shattering blow to the Pratihåra empire.
Two successive invasions by the Rastrakūtas, one in 915 A.D., the other in 940 A.D. broke up the empire of Gurjaradeśa. Its political fabric went to pieces. Every feudatory asserted his independence and there began a fresh struggle for supremacy among the chiefs of the small principalities, like the regions of Sapädalaksa with Säkambhart (modern Sâmbhar) as its capital; Gopagiri (modern Gwalior); Kirādu near Jodhpur; Marwad, with its capital at Naddula; Jabalipura (modern Jhålor); Abu, with its capital Candravati; Sarasvata-mandala or the valley of the Sarasvati river, with its capital at Anahilavada Pattana; Vägada or Dungarpur and Banswară; and Málava, with Dhārā as its capital.-(Glory that was Gurjara Desa, Part I, p. 8, 1951).
In 940 A.D. Krspa III, the Rastrakūta, invaded the North and in a swift campaign destroyed the empire of Gurjaradeśa. It was a historic event. Most of the feudatories as mentioned above became independent. The military governors of Junagadh and. Wadhwan disappeared. The Râṣṭrakūtas occupied parts of Rajputana, so far ruled by a feudatory of Kanauj.
The main-land of Gujarat and Malwa were ruled by the Paramāra king Slyaka II, as the viceroy and the feudatory-in-chief of the Râştrakuta emperor Kṛṣṇa III, who defeated emperor Mahipala, and ruled over Ånarta to the south of Sarasvati, Khetaka Mandala, West Malwa and Lata.
The story of Jayasekhara and Vanarāja Cavaḍā and his descendants ruling from Anahilavada Pattana between Circa 765 A.D. to 942 A D. appears to be but a vague relic of some minor dynasty of local chiefs and of the conflicts between them and Mihira Bhoja of Kanauj, who survives in the tradition as the Bhüyada of Kalyānakataka.
The Valabhi Kingdom received intermittant shocks from the Arabs and also from the Pratihära kings, which ultimately led to the fall of Valabhipura in Circa 776 A.D. Their glory passed on to the Pratihāras of Kanauj. In C. 780 Vatsaraja, the Pratihāra, king. of Gurjaradeśa, conquered Anarta and Saurastra.
Thus when the Empire of Gurjaradeśa fell about 940 A. D., the feudatories of
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