Indian Epigraphy c15.t18.3.3

c15.t18.3.3

A confused statement of Hiuen-tsang (who seems wrongly to represent Harṣa's elder brother Rājyavardhana as a king of Kanauj) says that 'the statesmen of Kanauj', on the advice of their leading man Bāṇi or Vāṇī, invited Harṣavardhana to become their sovereign and that the prince at first ‘modestly made excuses and seemed unwilling to comply with their request’.¹ This at least shows that the formal occupation of the Maukhari throne by Harṣa took place some time after he had become king of Thanesar on his brother’s death. This formal occupation of the Maukhari empire and the attainment of imperial dignity by Harṣa appear to have followed his success against the Gauḍas and Mālavas in a protracted war lasting for about six years. Hiuen-tsang says that Harṣa ‘waged incessant warfare until in six years he had fought the Five Indias (or had brought the Five India’s under allegiance)’, that is to say that he became ‘an emperor’ six years after his accession. As he got the throne of Thanesar in 606 A.D., he thus seems to have obtained imperial dignity in 612 A.D. This is corroborated by the *Life* according to which Harṣa had ruled as ‘lord of India’, i.e. as an emperor, for over thirty years by 643 A.D. The first quinquennial assembly at Prayāga, the sixth of which took place about the beginning of 643 A.D. could have been celebrated only after Harṣa had become formally anointed as the emperor of the erstwhile Maukhari realm covering U.P. and Bihar, in which Prayāga was situated.