History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c16.s1.t6.5

c16.s1.t6.5

Like previous rulers of Kanauj, Mahendrapāla attempted the conquest of Magadha and Bengal, which, as we have repeated so often, were vital to the economic prosperity of Kanauj owing to their control of the lower course of the Ganges; and as we learn from the findspots of certain inscriptions, his enterprise met with some success. One of them dated year 8 of Mahendrapāla’s coronation was discovered at Rāmgayā, opposite the Gadādhar temple at Gaya, and records the gift of Ṛiṣi Saudi’s son Sahadeva on the pedestal of the figures of Viṣṇu incarnations.⁴ Another of the 9th year was found at Guneriya in the southern part of the Gaya district. It is engraved on the pedestal of an image of the Buddha, which was the pious gift of Śrīpāla, the son of the merchant Haridatta.⁵ A third votive inscription has been unearthed at Itkhori in the Hazaribagh district of Bihar¹. Here we have got the name of Parameśvara Mahendrapāla incised on the pedestal of an image of Tārā, and there is hardly any doubt that it refers to the Pratihāra king. A fourth votive inscription on an image of the Buddha taming the elephant Nalagiri comes from Bihar and yields the year 4 of the same ruler². Lastly a stone pillar, dedicated in the fifth year of king Mahendrapāla to the Buddha by Sthavira Jayagarbha, was discovered by Mr. R. D. Banerji in 1926 in a Buddhist temple at Paharpur in the northern part of the Rajshahi district of Bengal³, which shows that the greater part of Magadha upto even northern Bengal had come under the suzerainty of the Pratihāra monarch.