History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c16.s1.t5.15

c16.s1.t5.15

Having thus made himself the dominant power in the *Madhyadeśa*, Bhoja turned to measure swords with the Pālas of Bengal, who under the vigorous rule of king Devapāla had once again launched upon their Imperial schemes, and are even poetically described in the Badal pillar inscription as having, on account of the sagacious policy of the first minister Darbhapāṇi, “made tributary the earth as far as Reva’s parent (the Vindhya hills), whose piles of rocks are moist with the rutting juice of elephants, as far as Gauri’s father (i.e., the Himālayas), the mountain which is whitened by the rays of Īśvara’s moon, and as far as the two oceans whose waters are red with the rising and setting of the sun.”¹ Similarly, verse 15 of the Monghyr grant avers that Devapāla enjoyed the whole region bounded on the north by the Himālayas, in the south by Rāma’s bridge, and by the abodes of Varuṇa and Lakṣmī (i.e., oceans) on the east and west.² Now all these hyperbolic descriptions are no doubt mere bombast, but one thing they certainly indicate that Devapāla did lead some successful military incursions, and thus the presence of two vigorous and masterful personalities in the politics of northern India made a clash inevitable. Soon the war-drum was sounded, and the legions began to move. At first Bhoja appears to have gained some ground, probably on the western frontiers of the Pāla kingdom, with the assistance of his feudatory Guṇāmbodhideva, who, as alleged in the Kahla plates, by a warlike expedition took away the fortune of Gauḍa.¹ Again, verse 18 of the Gwalior inscription, which speaks of Lakṣmī becoming his consort, seems to indicate that Bhoja achieved some victories over Dharma’s (Dharmapāla’s) son.² The former then tried to shatter his rival’s power finally, but Bhoja’s further efforts in this direction met with some reverses, as we are informed in the Badal pillar inscription that king Devapāla “brought low the arrogance of the lord of the Gurjaras” (Kharvikrita Gurjaranātha darpam).³ This exploit is attributed to the good advice of his minister Kedāra Miśra, the grandson of his first minister Darbhapāṇi, which shows that the event must have occurred late in his reign. Now, Devapāla is known to have ruled for a long time, from about 815 to *circa* 855 A. D.,⁴ and it is therefore fair to presume that the “lord of the Gurjaras” referred to in the above inscription is no other than Bhoja I Pratīhāra of Kanauj.