History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c16.s1.t3.9

c16.s1.t3.9

Nāgabhaṭa’s preliminary attempts thus proved abortive, but success in another direction was not long to come. His Rāṣṭrakūṭa adversary, Govinda III, who had also overrun the north upto the Himālayas, and to whom Cakrāyudha of Kanauj and his liege-lord Dharmapāla had submitted of their own accord², got engrossed towards the close of his reign with internal affairs in order to secure the succession of his son, Amoghavarṣa. And when Govinda III died early in 814 A. D., his young successor was unable to stem the rising tide of serious domestic seditions with the result that the kingdom was soon plunged in anarchy and confusion.³ This freedom of reprisals from the Rāṣṭrakūṭas probably gave to Nāgabhaṭa the opportunity to wage war, as we have seen above, against Cakrāyudha “whose lowly demeanour was manifest from his dependence on others.” The defeat was evidently followed by the annexation of the kingdom, and the transfer of the Pratihāra capital to Kanauj, since Cakrāyudha disappears about this time from the stage of history, and Nāgabhaṭa’s successors for several generations are definitely known to have held their court there. The conquest of Kanauj at once gave to the Pratihāras the supreme power in the north, and Nāgabhaṭa felt himself justified in assuming the full imperial titles—Paramabhaṭṭāraka, Mahārājādhirāja, and Parameśvara—in the Buckalā inscription issued in the year 815 A. D.¹