History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c9.s1.t5.10

c9.s1.t5.10

Opinion being so divided, let us examine how far our original authorities justify us in concluding that Kanauj was the Maukhari seat of government. In the first place, the testimony of Bāṇa seems to be very valuable in this connection. He makes Saṃvādaka, the servant of princess Rājyaśrī, deliver the following sad tidings to Harṣa and Rājyavardhana: “On the very day on which the king’s death was rumoured, His Majesty Grahavarman was by the wicked lord of Malwa cut off from the living along with his noble deeds. Rājyaśrī also, the princess, has been confined like a brigand’s wife with a pair of iron fetters kissing her feet, and cast into prison at Kānyakubja.”² If Kanauj was the capital of Grahavarman’s adversary, as Ś. P. Pandit and Smith would have us believe, does it not appear incomprehensible why Bāṇa should call him “the wicked lord of Mālava?” Besides, the statement in the Harṣacarita that Kānyakubja was “seized by the man named Gupta”³ clearly proves, it was in the possession of some other power, which could be no other but the Maukharis at this time. Thus, in my humble opinion, the evidence of Bāṇa naturally leads to the conclusion that Rājyaśrī was residing in Kanauj when it was attacked by the “wicked lord of Malwa,” and it was there that she was imprisoned after her husband’s murder. This tragedy was followed by the relief of Kanauj by Rājyavardhana, but its effects were soon counteracted by the recapture of the Maukhari capital by Śaśāṅka, the king of Gauḍa, who had come all the way from Bengal to assist the Mālava king in his aggressive designs against the allied houses of Thānesvar and Kanauj.¹