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GAUDAS AND KATACHCHURIS 609 and cast into prison at Kanyakubja.” “The villain, deeming the army leaderless purposes to invade and seize this country (Thanesar) as well.”1 Rājya-vardhana, though he routed the Mālava army “with ridiculous ease," was “allured to confidence by false civilities on the part of the overlord of Gauda, and then weaponless, confiding and alone despatched in his own quarters.”
To meet the formidable league between the Guptas and the Gaudas, Harsha, the successor of Rājya-vardhana, concluded an alliance with Bhāskara-varman, king of Kāmarūpa, whose father Susthita-varman Mrigāňka bad fought against Malāsena Gupta. This alliance was disastrous for the Gaudas as we know from the Nid hanapur plates of Bhāskara. At the time of the issuing of the plates Bhāskara-varman was in possession of the city of Karņasuvarņa that had once been the capital of the Gauda king, Śaśānka, whose death took place some time between A.D. 619 and 637. The king overthrown by Bhāskara-varman may have been Jayanāga (nāgarājasamāhvayo Gaudarāja, the king of Gauda named Nāga, successor of Somākhya or Saśāńka), whose name is disclosed by the Vappaghoshavāța inscription. The Gauda people, however, did not tamely acquiesce in the loss of their independence. They became a thorn in the side of Kanauj and Kāmarūpa, and their hostility towards those two powers was inherited by the Pāla and Sēna successors of Saśānka.
In or about A.D. 608 the Guptas seem to have lost Vidiśā to the Katachchuris. Magadha was held a little before A.D. 637 by Pūrņavarman. Mādhava Gupta, the younger or youngest son of Mahāsena Gupta, remained a subordinate ally of Harsha of Thanesar and Kanauj, and
1 Harsha-charita, Uchchhvāsa 6, p. 183.
2 Ep. Ind., XVIII, pp. 60 ff; Arya-Mañjuśri-mūla-kalba, ed. G. Šāstri, p. 636. The name Jaya is also given in the Buddhist work. 0. P. 90—77.
