Indian Epigraphy c15.t11.21

c15.t11.21

Majumdar says, “It is probable that when the Pāla kingdom in Gaya was finally destroyed, the people, especially the Buddhists, continued for sometime to count their dates with reference to the last Buddhist Pāla king Govindapāla. Again when the Muslim invaders destroyed the Hindu kingdoms in Bihar and Bengal, the people unwilling to refer to the *pravardhamāna-vijaya-rājya* of the foreign conquerors, counted the dates with reference to the destruction of the last Hindu kingdom.”¹ But this is possible only if Lakṣmaṇasena ruled over Bihar. Govindapāla appears to have been ousted from the Gaya region by the Gāhaḍavālas² who were probably themselves ousted from that area by the Senas. This possibility explains the introduction of the two *atīta-rājya* reckonings of Govindapāla and Lakṣmaṇasena in the said region and the latter’s introduction thence to North Bihar by the people of that part, who fled to the north after the Muslim occupation of South Bihar. Lakṣmaṇasena’s *atīta-rājya* reckoning thus seems to have come into existence on the extirpation of Sena rule from Bihar although the calculation must have been the same as the regnal reckoning of that monarch.³