The Colas c18.s1.2

c18.s1.2

Dr. S. K. Aiyangar has discussed the Ganges campaign at some length in his essay on *Gaṅgaikoṇḍa-Cōḷa* and I must explain why I am unable to accept some of his conclusions. Our differences are partly due to the different estimates we have of the value of the Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates (*op. cit.* p. 554). I agree with Mr. R. D. Banerji that 'the order in which the names of the countries are mentioned (in Rājēndra's Tamil inscriptions) prevents us from supposing that Bihar is' Daṇḍabhukti. Dr. S. K. Aiyangar says: 'As the name itself indicates, Bihar must have been on the frontier of some important empire or kingdom, which on that side required protection against a powerful enemy'; I do not see how. Nor is any tangible evidence brought forward by him in support of his position (p. 558) that Magadha was ruled by the Rāṣṭrakūṭas at the end of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth till it was wrested from them by the Pāla opponent of Rājēndra, Mahīpāla, who installed Dharmapāla viceroy over his new conquest. Banerji has satisfactorily explained the western expansion of the Pāla kingdom in the early years of Mahīpāla by the condition of the Gurjara kingdom after the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni. (*Pālas of Bengal* p. 70).