The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v2.c35.22

v2.c35.22

The period (c. 1030-79 A.D.) which followed the death of Maḥmūd in 1030 A.D. was marked by a gradual weakening of Turkish pressure on the plains of India. Though the Yamīnīs certainly continued to raid the territories of the neighbouring princes and once—about 1033 A.D., in the reign of Mas‘ūd I (1030-40 A.D.)—are reported to have advanced as far east as Benares, they failed to produce during the period a single king or general who could even approach Maḥmūd in military skill and leadership. In the east the same thing happened in the kingdom of the Candellas. The successors of Vidyādhara lacked the ability of their illustrious predecessor and the vision of an empire-builder, and failed to profit by the weakness of their neighbours. The position that they occupied in the South-Central portion of Northern India gradually slipped into the hands of the Ḍahala Kalacuris, who in Gāṅgeyadeva Vikramāditya (c. 1030-41 A.D.) and Lakṣmī-Karṇa (c. 1041-70 A.D.) produced two men of outstanding personality. The latter formed an alliance with the Caulukya Bhīma I (c. 1022-64 A.D.) and the Karṇāṭas and defeated and probably killed the Paramāra Bhoja (c. 1010-55 A.D.) of Dhārā. By unceasing military activity Lakṣmī-Karṇa extended his dominions from Western Bengal to the borders of Gujarat. In the North he suppressed the independence of the Candellas, and became the unquestioned arbiter of a large portion of the Ganges-Jumna valley. Indian history seemed at last to find a personality who could emulate the achievements of the Puṣyabhūti Harṣa or the Gurjara-Pratīhāra Nāgabhaṭa II and Bhoja I, but again this hope was unrealised. The edifice of the Kalacuri empire, it seems, was built on unstable foundations; and when Lakṣmī-Karṇa was overwhelmed by a series of defeats, his empire like that of Napoleon, collapsed with him. The position left vacant in the Ganges-Jumna valley by the fall of the Kalacuris was then occupied by the Gāhaḍavālas. Govindacandra of this dynasty ascended the throne in the first decade of the 12th century, and for nearly fifty years ruled over a strong kingdom which seems to have included almost the whole of the modern U. P.