Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c5.s1.59

c5.s1.59

It should be remembered that, whenever a king is described as the ruler or conqueror of a territory indicated by four boundaries that may be placed about the borders of Bhāratavarṣa, the claim has to be regarded as merely conventional. There is usually no truth in the claim beyond that the king in question regarded himself as an imperial, or at least an independent, ruler. The conventional nature of such claims is further demonstrated clearly by a verse describing the victories of the Pāla army in the whole area bounded by the eastern land in the east, the valley of the Malaya (Travancore hills) in the south, in the Maru country (Marwar or the Rajaputana Desert) in the west and the Prāleyādri (Himālaya) in the north, as found in the records of different monarchs of the Pāla family of Bengal and Bihar.³