History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c17.s2.21.1

c17.s2.21.1

Thus although there were some secessions in the outlying parts of the kingdom, in the home provinces themselves Indra III's campaign meant in effect no more than a successful raid, and it left no traces behind save the horrid marks of sanguinary war. Kanauj soon revived, and we have even indications that Mahīpāla resumed his predecessors' schemes of conquest. For the court-poet Rājaśekhara, who must have lived in the early part of Mahīpāla's reign, not only speaks of him as the "pearl-jewel of the race of Raghu," and the "Mahārājādhirāja of Āryāvarta," but also in a magniloquent verse in the introduction to the *Pracaṇḍa Pāṇḍava* of *Bāla-Bhārata* attributes to him the following victories in distant lands : "And in that (lineage of Raghu) there was born the glorious Mahīpāladeva who has bowed down the locks of hair on the tops of the heads of the Muralas; who has caused the Mekhalas to suppurate; who has driven the Kalingas before him in war; who has spoilt the pastime of (the king who is) the moon of the Keralas; who has conquered the Kulūtas; who is a very axe to the Kuntalas; and who by violence has appropriated the fortunes of the Ramaṭhas"¹. It is difficult to identify Murala in this passage; possibly it stands for the Narbada and the Muralas were consequently those who inhabited its banks. Some scholars on the other hand take it to signify the country watered by the river Muralā in or around the Kerala country (*Raghuvamśa*, IV, 55).