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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
[VOL. XVIII
and Jumna, and forced him to take shelter in the deserts of Rajputāna. The effects of the Ráshţrakūta blow seem to have been disastrous. The Pålas took advantage of this opportunity and entered the field as rivals of the Gurjaras. Dharmapāla, the second king of the dynasty, carried a campaign of conquest from one end of northern India to another, and placed his own nomince Chakrāyudha on the throne of Kanauj, apparently as a balwark against the possible Gurjara invasions. The Gurjara, power was, however, merely stunned by the blow for the time being, and Nagabhata II, the son and successor of Vatsaraja, once more sought to realise the imperial dreams of his father (vv. 8-11). The poet tells us in v. 8, that kings of Sindhu, Andhra, Vidarbha and Kalinga succumbed to his power liko moths unto fire. Now, moths are attracted by the glare of the fire and approach it of their own accord, although it leads to their ultimate destruction. The force of this simile is preserved if we suppose that the kings of these four countries were not conquered by Nágabhata but joined him of their own accord in the first instance, although, ultimately, they lost their power thereby. The position of these four countries confirms this view. Joined to Málwă and Rājputână which were the home-territory of the Gurjaras, the four countries form a central belt right across the country, bounded on the north by the empire of the Pālas, and, on the south, by that of the Rashtrakätas. It appear's quite likely, therefore, that they formed a confederacy against the two great powers that pressed them from the two sides, although, as so often happens, the most powerful member of the confederacy ultimately reduced the others to a state of absolute dependence. This seems to me to be the real significance of the eighth verse. In the next, the poet describes the first achievements of the confederacy thus successfully launched by the Gurjara king, viz. the defeat inflicted upon Chakrayudha. War with Chakrāyudha was, however, but a prelude to the war with the Pala king whose protége he had been, and this is described in the next verse, in words befitting the occasion. The simile which the poet employs in this connection is, again, significant. We are told that after defeating the dark dense array of the lord of Vanga, Nägabhata revealed himself even as the rising Sun reveals himself by dispelling the dense darkness. This means, in plain language, that the rise of Nagabhata was possible only if he could defeat the Vanga king, and that is why he first turned his arms in this direction. The Sun of Gurjara glory had set with Vatsarăja, and the fortunes of his family, crushed by his powerful enemies, lay enveloped in the darkness of night as it were, till a defeat inflicted upon them ushered in a new dawn for the Gurjaras in the east. Soon the dawn passed away and the Sun reached its noonday height; for, the next verse informs us that Nagabhata captured the strongholds of the Anartta, Mälava, Kiräta, Turushka, Vatsa and Mataya countries. The poet leaves his hero in the height of his glory, but we know from other records that the Sun reclined to the west and the dusk set in even in the life-time of Nägabhata II. We learn from the Rashtrakata records that the kings of Gurjara, Málava and other countries along the Vindhya mountains were defeated by Govinda
1 Cl. verso 8 of the Radhanpar plates of Govinda III, abovo, Vol. VI, p. 243. That Dhrays actually proceeded as far as the Ganges and the Jamna is clear from the following passage of the Baroda plates of Karkarsja :
“ Yo Gangi-Yamano taranga-subhago grihnan=parebhyah samar säksbach-chiha-nibhēna ch-öttama-padam tat-priptavin=aivaram | doh-isemmita-vaibhavair=iva gunairay yasya bhramadbhiruddin vyåptar-tanya babhūya kirtti-purusho Govinda-rijab sutab IP"
. Ind. Ant., Vol. XII, p. 169. Dr. Fleet who edited the above inscription took the first two lines as referring to Govinda III (Ibid, p. 163), and Mr. R. Chanda also adopted the same view (Manari, Vol. VII, p. 589). In my bumble opinion this is a niatake and the last line clearly shows that the reference is not to Govinda-rija bat to his father Dhruva.
Cf. v. 6 of the Khalimpar copper-plate (above, Vol. IV, p. 343 2.) And v. 8 of the Bhagalpur coppor. plate of Nariyayapala (Ind. Ant., Vol. XV, p. 304 f.).
