History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c18.s3.16

v1.c18.s3.16

This poem by Vākpātirāj is in Prākrit Mahārāshtrī and gives a detailed description of a digvijaya so to speak of his patron king Yaśovarman of Kanauj. But this digvijaya seems to be of doubtful authenticity. As the poem is called Gaudavaho, or the killng of the Gauda king, that may be taken to be the central fact and as such to be historically true. But did Yaśovarman go on a world-conquering expedition east, south, west and north as famous kings in India from the mythical Raghu down to historical Samudragupta and Lalitāditya went? There is no confirmation of this in other historical documents. On the other hand Vākpatirāj was a contemporory poet and his poem contemporary as it is cannot entirely be disbelieved. Perhaps the non-completion of the chief poem shows that the poet conceived the digvijaya as a probable event and not an actual fact. The fact is that Yaśovarman was defeated by a Chālukya king in the south and a Kashmir king in the north. However we think it necessary to give details of this digvijaya as they are given in this poem Gaudavaho. Some facts are indeed valuable as historical evidence.