History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c18.s1.t3.13

c18.s1.t3.13

The Rahan plate further describes Govindacandra as "terrific in cleaving the frontal globes of arrays of irresistible mighty large elephants from Gauḍa,"⁵ which shows that he must have made some encroachments in Magadha. This was probably due to the decadent state of the Pāla monarchy, whose power had been considerably weakened at this time by the aggressions of Vijayasena of the Sena dynasty. Availing himself of this favourable opportunity, evidently according to certain Michiavellian precepts of some Indian manuals on state-craft,¹ Govindacandra annexed portions of Magadha, where in the Vikrama *saṃvat* 1183 or 1126 A. D. he is definitely known to have made a grant of the village Padali, situated in the Maniyara (Maner) *pattalā* in the western part of the Patna district, to a Brahman named Gaṇeśvaraśarman.² At a later date, however, Govindacandra pushed his conquest further towards the east, for we learn from the Lar plates of 1202 V. E. or 1146 A. D. that when in residence at Mudgagiri (Monghyr) after bathing in the Ganges on the occasion of the Akṣaya-tritīyā festival he granted the village of Potacavada in the Paṇḍala *pattalā* to the Ṭhakkura Śrīdhara.³ This inscription, therefore, proves that Mudgagiri passed into the hands of the Gahaḍavālas, but we do not know for certain whether the Pālas maintained their independent existence in some safer corner of the kingdom or were reduced to subordination. At any rate, two rulers who must have belonged to this line seem to have come after Madanapāla. One of them, Palapāla, dedicated an image in the 35th year of his reign according to the Jayanagar inscription;⁴ and another Govindapāla is known from the Gadādhar Gaya inscription, which states that the Vikrama year 1232 was "Śrī-Govindapāladeva gatarājye caturdaśasaṃ- vatsare”.¹