The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.s2.32

v3.c29.s2.32

The Gahlot kingdom, which is still represented by the State of Udaipur, had been founded before the invasion of Sind by Muhammad b. Qāsim, and tradition credits its ruler with having met the Muslims in the field in those early days, but the state seems to have taken no part in the resistance offered to Mahmūd. The same may be said of the Pāla kings of Bengal and Bihār, who apparently believed that they were not concerned in the fate of the Punjab and Hindūstān, though the dominions of Dharmapāla, the second of the line, are said to have extended from the Bay of Bengal to Delhi and Jullundur. They were devout Buddhists, and their religion perhaps set a gulf between them and their Brahmanical neighbours. Mahīpāla I was reigning in Bengal during the period of Mahmūd’s raids, but before the next wave of invasion, destined to engulf Bengal, had broken over Northern India, and during a serious rebellion which broke out in the Pāla kingdom about the year 1080, Choragangā, king of Kalinga, extended his conquests to the extreme north of Orissa, and Sāmantasena, a chieftain from the Deccan, founded a principality at Kāsipurī, now Kasiārī, in the Mayūrbhanj State. His grandson, Vijayasena, established his independence about 1119, and took much of Bengal from the Pālas, his aggression being doubtless stimulated by religious antagonism, for all the Senas were Brahmanical Hindus. Vallālasena, or Ballāl Sen, Vijayasena’s son and successor, was the most powerful of the line. He introduced Kulinism into Bengal, and is said to have founded Gaur, or Lakhnāwatī, but the city was probably built before his reign. About 1175 he was succeeded by his son, Lakshmanasena, who was driven from his capital, Nadiya, by Ikhtiyār-ud-dīn Muhammad b. Bakhtyār¹. The capture of Nadiya (Nuddea) did not immediately extinguish the dynasty, which continued its existence for four generations after Lakshmanasena, but the rajas were mere vassals of the Muslim rulers of the country.