History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v2.c29.s2.40

v2.c29.s2.40

Dharmapāla was succeeded by Devapāla, his nephew and he may be assigned a reign from 825 to 850 A.D. He again was succeeded by his nephew Vigrahapāla I. It seems that both Dharmapāla and Devapāla were without sons and adopted their nephews as sons. This explains why Devapāla is in one grant called nephew of Dharmapāla and in another his mother is said to be Rānnadevi. Vigrahapāla married Lajjā, a Haihaya princess (see Bhāgalpur grant). He may be assigned a reign from 850 to 875 A.D. His son was Nārāyaṇapāladeva who made this oft-mentioned Bhāgalpur grant. The year is not certain as the date is mentioned in regnal years. Nārāyaṇapāla was succeeded by Rājyapāla who married Bhāgyadevī, daughter of Rāṣṭrakūṭa Tunga who is identified as Jaggattunga. He may be said to have reigned till 925 A.D. and was followed by his son Gopāla II (925-950) who was followed by Vigrahapāla II (950-976) and he was followed by his son Mahīpāla who issued the Sāranath grant for the first time gives us a distinct date viz., 1083 V.E. or 1026 A.D. By assigning 25 years to each reign we come to Mahīpāla's rule ending in 1000 A.D. and even if this inscription be supposed to belong to the last year of Mahīpāla's reign we have a difference of about 26 years which, distributed over 9 reigns, gives a difference of about 3 years for each reign. This is really negligible and we may suppose some one of the kings to have had a long rule and probably Mahīpāla himself. This inscription mentions that Mahīpāla was driven from his position by enemies, but that he recovered his patrimony by his efforts. Who these enemies were and how the kingdom was regained are matters of great curiosity. Perhaps the shocks of Mahmud's invasions which India received at this time were responsible for this mishap for the effect of these shocks might have reached even distant Bengal. But this belongs to the third volume of our history and we close our notice of this Pāla dynasty here though it did not continue for long hereafter and it was succeeded by the power of the Senas in the eleventh century A. D. (Mahīpāla was succeeded by Nārāyaṇapāla and he was succeeded by Vigrahapāla III who made the Āmagāchhi grant on which Keilhorn has recorded his valuable note.)