The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c18.8

v1.c18.8

As this inscription is extremely fragmentary, it is at present impossible to say whether the princes named in it were themselves rulers of Kanauj or were feudatories of the rulers of that city. More definite information about the local rulers of Kanauj during this period is supplied by the Set Mahet stone-inscription of Vidyādhara dated in (V)¹ *Saṁvat* 1176 (A. D. 1119-20) and the Budaun stone-inscription of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa Lakhaṇapāla.² The former record refers itself to the time of king Madana, son of Gopāla, the lord of Gādhipura. It is quite likely that Gopāla and Madana are identical with the two princes of the same name in the Badaun inscription.³ As Madana is the 6th king, and the 5th in lineal descent from Candra, the founder of this line, we can approximately assign the beginnings of the dynasty to the second half of the 11th century A. D. It is probable that, taking advantage of the confusion which prevailed in the Ganges-Jumna valley from the second decade of the 11th century onwards, this Rāṣṭrakūṭa family may have for some time become masters of the territory from Budaun to Kanauj. Whether however its princes at any time exercised the full rights of sovereign rulers, may be questioned. Though there is no definite evidence, yet it is hardly to be doubted that they had to bow before the victorious arms of Lakṣmī-Karṇa. The death of Lakṣmī-Karṇa in *c.* 1070 A. D., also did not grant them any long respite from foreign interference. For within two decades of the death of the Kalacuri prince a new imperial power arose in the Ganges-Jumna valley which by (V) *Saṁvat* 1148 (A.D. 1090) had already extended itself from Benares to Kanauj.⁴ This was the dynasty which came to be known as the Gāhaḍavālas.⁵