The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c16.193.2

v1.c16.193.2

It simply refers to the roaming about of the army of Vigrahapāla from the eastern country to the Maru lands and from the Himalayas to the Malaya country. The distribution of his inscriptions however shows, that, whatever the limits of his ancestral dominions were at the time of his accession, before his 48th year he ruled over Gaya, Patna, and Muzaffarpur districts in Bihar, and possibly over the Tippera district in Bengal. From the composition of the Sarnath inscription, scholars have assumed that even Benares was included in his dominions about 1026 A.D.² His Bangad grant shows his power over Northern Bengal. Mahīpāla therefore can very well be regarded as the second founder of the fortunes of the Pālas. But his attempts to revive Pāla power brought him into conflict with other ambitious sovereigns of India. A MS. of the *Caṇḍakauśika* of Kṣemīśvara, dated 1331 A.D., refers indirectly to a conflict of Mahīpāla with the Karṇātas. From the fact that it compares Mahīpāla with Candragupta and the Karṇātas with the *nava-Nandas*, it can be assumed that the Pāla king successfully repulsed an attempted invasion of his territories by the Cālukyas of Kalyāṇa, who were at this period the rulers of Karṇāta.³ The possibility of another struggle with a western potentate is revealed by a Nepal MS. of the *Rāmāyaṇa*, the colophon of which tells us that it was copied in (V.) *Saṁvat* 1076 (A.D.