The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c13.201

v1.c13.201

This event brought to a head the currents of treason and treachery which were already rampant in Harṣa’s court and were slowly undermining his authority. He found himself surrounded by ministers who kept on advising him to retreat with his wealth and family to Lohara. This the king refused to do, and recalling his son Bhoja, who had already started to seek refuge in the castle of Lohara, he tried desperately to weed out traitors from the city. Instigated by his *Sāhi* queens, he killed Malla, who from Śrīnagara had been secretly instigating his sons Uccala and Sussala to rebellion.¹ But the news of their father's death only made the brothers redouble their efforts. Sussala defeated and killed the valiant Candrarāja, and capturing Vijayeśvara, attacked Śrīnagara. Filled with the ambition of seizing the throne for himself, he now wished to prevent Uccala from entering of the city. But his purpose was frustrated by his unexpected defeat at the hands of the king's son Bhoja. In the meantime the treachery of Sunna, the Prefect of Police, and Nāga, the Town Prefect, had thrown open the gates of Śrīnagara to Uccala. After a desperate resistance at the bridgehead of the city Harṣa was driven back into the palace, which was burned and plundered by a mob of infuriated "citizens and Dāmaras striking at each other with upraised weapons." The king's son Bhoja then took to flight 'knowing that the kingdom was lost,' while 17 queens with Vasantalekhā at their head burned themselves on the four-pillared pavilion of the palace. Among the faithful servants who still clung to the king was Campaka, Kalhaṇa's father. The doomed king, who had not received any news of his son, now sent Campaka and other officers to follow up his track. Soon he was completely deserted by all his followers, and fled from Śrīnagara with only his personal servant Prayāga and a cook named Mukta. Kalhaṇa gives a pathetic description of the incidents which gradually led to his death. In this supreme crisis of life the king threw away his last chance when he forgot to take shelter in the house of the loyal Dāmara Nīlāśva. While hiding in a miserable hut on the Vitastā, below Śrīnagara, near a burning ground, he heard of the tragic death of his son Bhoja and was soon after himself killed with Prayāga by some supporters of Uccala (1101 A. D.).² At the time of his death Harṣa was only 42 years and 8 months old. Thus miserably died a prince who in his dazzling qualities and monstrous vices as well as in his heterodoxy and traces of incipient insanity probably finds a parallel in Muhammad Tughluq.¹ We end his account by quoting the following verses of Kalhaṇa, which admirably sums up this striking character: