History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c16.s1.t3.11

c16.s1.t3.11

But though Nāgabhaṭa was now immune from the Rāṣṭrakūṭa danger on account of their internal dissensions and rivalries, Dharmapāla of Bengal, who had raised Cakrāyudha to the throne, took the field against him to avenge his vassal’s deposition. A reminiscence of this struggle is preserved in the Gwalior inscription of Bhoja in terms suggestive of its importance and arduous character. We are told that “having vanquished his enemy, the lord of Vanga, who appeared like a mass of dark, dense cloud in consequence of the crowd of mighty elephants, horses and chariots, Nāgabhaṭa who alone gladdens (the heart of) the three worlds, revealed himself, even as the rising sun, the sole source of manifestation of the three worlds, reveals himself by vanquishing dense and terrible darkness”.² The battle was probably fought at Monghyr, since the Jodhpur inscription of Bāuka, dated in the (Vikrama) year 894 or 837 A. D., informs us that his father Kakka “gained renown by fighting with the Gauḍas at Mudgagiri.”³ From the date of the record it is evident that Kakka must have been a contemporary of Nāgabhaṭa; and as the house of the latter had already risen to ascendancy in Rajputana, we may assume that Kakka proceeded as far as Monghyr only to help his suzerain in a conflict that was to decide the fortunes of the Pratihāras in Kanauj. Perhaps another feudatory chief, who fought against the ruler of Bengal on behalf of Nāgabhaṭa, was Saṃkaragaṇa. The Cātsū inscription of Bālāditya¹ says that he “defeated the king of Gauḍa, a great warrior (bhaṭa), and made the whole world, gained by warfare, subservient to his overlord.”² As well pointed out by Dr. R. C. Majumdar, this Saṃkaragaṇa must have been a contemporary of Nāgabhaṭa about the commencement of the 9th century, since the former was the great-grandson of Dhanika, who is known to have been ruling in 725 A. D.³ Thus having dispersed the dense clouds in the form of the mighty hosts of Dharmapāla the sun of Nāgabhaṭa’s glory shone in the political horizon, and soon its brilliant rays began to permeate and radiate all round. For the Gwalior inscription, which details his subsequent achievements, tells us that the kings of Andhra, Sindhu, Vidarbha and Kalinga succumbed to his youthful energy as moths do unto fire.⁴ The Andhra country lay between the Godāvarī and the Kṛṣṇā; Sindhu denotes the lower course of the Indus; Vidarbha and Kalinga were the ancient designations of the modern provinces of Berar and Orissa. And if these alleged conquests were really in accordance with facts, Nāgabhaṭa’s sphere of suzerainty must have covered all the regions from the east to the west, and from the Himālayas to the Nerbuda, excluding, of course the north-western parts and the Pāla dominions. But there is little reason to accept any such conclusion, for the simile itself used by the poet is significant. We are told that just as moths cannot resist rushing headlong towards the fire, similarly the kings of the countries named were attracted of their own accord towards Nāgabhaṭa—or in other words they sought his powerful aid or alliance against their respective enemies who may be identified with the incoming Moslems in the west, the Rāṣṭrakūṭas in the south, and the Pālas in the east.