History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c17.s5.1.3

c17.s5.1.3

Ray may be right in thinking that he was the son of Mahendrapāla II, for among Indian Royalty it is not unoften the practice to give to the grandson the same name as that of the grandfather.¹ But there is just one point which seems to militate against the view that Vināyakapāla II followed Devapāla. We have already noted that Yaśovarman is represented in the same Khajurāho inscription as a “scorching fire to the Gurjaras,” and is even credited with the easy conquest of Kālañjara. If, therefore, Yaśovarman had practically wrested the independence of the Candellas, how could his successor Dhanga continue to invoke the name of the Pratīhāra king as his overlord. Perhaps the explanation to this apparent anomaly is that like the Nizam of the Deccan and the Nawabs of Oudh, who were virtually independent and yet nominally acknowledged the suzerainty of the Great Moghul at Delhi, the Candel ruler also did not all at once break off formal relations with the effete imperial power at Kanauj, but for some time maintained an outward show of submission. Now, if Vināyakapāla II was an historical reality, as appears quite likely from the foregoing discussion, who was his successor? With regard to Mahīpāla II, we are rather on uncertain ground. He has been mentioned in a stone inscription, discovered at Bayana in the Bharatpur state, which records the erection of a temple of Viṣṇu by Citralekhā,² and the reasons of his identification as a Pratihāra monarch are twofold.