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Jaya Chandra Rathore was the king of Kanouj and held Allahabad, Oude, and Benares under his sway. Bhima Deva was the ruler of Gujrat and of Central India. Shahabuddin attacked Prithu Rai in 1 191 in the field of Tirouri, and for once the Moslems were beaten. But their game was not lost. Shahabuddin defeated Prithu Rai in 1 193, and Jayachandra in 1194 A.D., and conquered the whole of Northern India from the Punjab to Benares. And the haughtiest of the Rajputs left the conquered region and retreated to their desert home in Rajputana. The heroism of the Rajputs was like a gleam of sun- shine preceding the gloom of Hindu subjection and national death. In personal braver}*, in patriotism, in a determination to conquer or to die, the Rajputs who resisted Kasim and Mahmud and Shahabuddin were not inferior to their enemies or to any nation on the Digitized by Google CHAP. II.] VALABHIS AND RAJPUTS. 239 face of the earth. But in military discipline, as well as in strategy and matured plans of operations, the Hindus were not equal to their more experienced and trained enemies. Superstition too often changed the heroism of the Hindus into cowardice ; while their dealings with the foe were often marked by a "simplicity derived from a want of intercourse with other nations, which rendered them inferior in practical ability, and even in military efficiency to men actuated by much less elevated sentiments than theirs." * It is remarkable that during the six centuries that the Mahommedans remained masters of India, scarcely one serious attempt was made to reassert Hindu inde- pendence. At first the number of the Mahommedan conquerors must have been exceedingly small, and it is a curious fact that the millions of brave Hindus from the Punjab to Behar made no exertion to throw off the yoke. But political life was extinct in Northern India except among the Rajputs. With the fall of the old nations and dynasties during the 8th and 9th centuries was witnessed the fall of all dynastic pride, all national vigour among races. The people were brave, but bravery is of small avail without political life. The only living race there- fore, the Rajputs, had naturally taken up the position which there was no one else to take up, and had be- come masters of Delhi, Kanouj, Benares,— all capitals * Elphinstone's History of India. Ed. Cowetl, 1S74, P- 3^2. Digitized by 240 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V of ancient but effete races. And when the Rajputs were hurled from their proud position, the races of Northern India submitted to the new invaders, as they had submitted to the Rajputs. For political life was extinct, and subjection and national death ensued. Such are the political causes which account for the easy subjugation of a great confederacy of nations by a handful of invaders. There were other causes, reli- gious and social, which prostrated the Hindu nation, and made them feeble, superstitious, disunited, and in- capable of exertion. These causes too were in active operation during the centuries immediately before the Mahommedan conquest. But of this we will speak elsewhere. Digitized by Google CHAPTER III. BENGAL AND ORISSA. IN the second or Epic Period, the kingdoms of Maga- dha and Anga, i.e., South and East Bchar, were scarcely yet within the Aryan pale, although slowly imbibing Aryan civilization. It was in the Rationalistic Period, after iooo B. C. that Magadha became completely Aryanized, and rose in power and civilization, until it eclipsed and even subdued the more ancient Aryan kingdoms in the Gangetic Valley. And it was then, probably in the 5th or 6th centuries B. C. that Bengal proper and Orissa received from the flourishing king- dom of Magadha the first rays of Aryan civilization. During the sixth and fifth centuries B. C, Bengal and Orissa gave little indication of progress and learning. Sutra schools were founded in the monarchy of the Andhras in Southern India at this time, but we hear of no such schools in Bengal or Orissa. In the fourth cen- tury B. C, when the Greeks visited India, they found powerful kingdoms founded in Bengal and Orissa which they called by the general name of Kalinga. In the third century B. C. Kalinga was conquered by Asoka the Great, as we learn from his inscriptions, and this conquest probably facilitated the spread of Buddhism in R. C. D., A. I.— III. 16 Digitized by Google 242 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. these provinces, and also brought Bengal and Orissa in closer connexion with the civilization of Northern India. ' Slowly and obscurely Bengal rose in importance and in civilization, and by the close of the Buddhist Period, Bengal was a recognized power in India. Sas&nka (Narendra Gupta) king of Karna Suvarna, near Gour, defeated and killed in war the elder brother of the great Sil&ditya about the commencement of the seventh century ; and when about 640 A. D. Houen Tsang came to Bengal, he found civilized and powerful king- doms in Pundra or Northern Bengal, Samatata or East- ern Bengal, Kamarupa or Assam, and Tamralipti or Southern Bengal, as well as in Karna Suvarna or Western Bengal. These kingdoms correspond, roughly, with the present Rajshahi, Dacca,Assam,Burdwan,and Presidency divisions. Houen Tsang's account of these kingdoms has been given elsewhere, and need not be repeated here. After this we scarcely hear anything of Bengal till near the time of the Mahommedan conquest. Indeed Bengal was in olden times so barren of literary culture, talent or genius, of architecture or striking works of art, or even of great political transactions in connection with Northern India, that but for the visits paid by the Greeks and the Chinese, we should have known little or nothing of the country from its first colonization by the Aryans in the Rationalistic Period to the time of the Mahommedan conquest. Digitized by Google CHAP. III.] BENGAL AND ORISSA. 243 A number of copper-plate grants which have been discovered in recent times shew that races of kings known as the Pala kings and Sena kings ruled in Ben- gal for about three centuries before the Mahommedan conquest. Dr. Rajendra Lala Mitra has carefully con- densed and arranged the information on this subject in his essay on the Pala and Sena Dynasties, now published in the second volume of his Indo-Aryans, and we take the following lists from that essay. It will be seen Dr. Mitra allows generally an average of 20 years for each reign ; Pala kings. Sena kings. In Western & Northern Bengal. In Eastern & Littoral Bengal. L Gopala ... 855 A.D. t ViraSena ... 986 A.D. II. Dharmapala 875 „ II. Samanta Sena 1006 „ III. Devapala ... 895 „ III. HemantaSena 1026 „ IV. Vigrahapala... 915 „ In the whole of Bengal, V. Narayanapala 935 „ IV. Vijaya alias Sukha VI. Rajapala ... 955 „ Sena ... 1046 „ VII. Pala ... 975 „ V. BallalaSena 1066 „ VIII. Vigrahapala II 995 „ VI. Lakshmana IX. Mahipdla ... 1015 Sena ... 1106 „ X. Nayapala ... 1040 „ VII. Madhava Sena 1 136 „ Expelled from Bengal by the Senas) VIII. Kesava Sena 1138 „ IX. L&kshmaneya 1 alias AsokaSena f " Mahommedan conquest about 1204 n Very little is known of the Pala kings except that they were Buddhists, but were tolerant towards Hindus, employed Hindu officials and gave lands Digitized by Google 244 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. for religious purposes to the Hindus. They never pos- sessed East Bengal, but ruled as Dr. Mitra says " on the west of the Bhagirathi certainly as far as the boundary of Behar, and probably further, taking the whole of the ancient kingdom of Magadha. On the north it included Tirhut, Malda, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Rangpur, and Bagu- ra, which constituted the great ancient kingdom of Pun- dra Vardhana. The bulk of the delta seems not to have belonged to them." Of the first king Gopala a short inscription has been found in Nalanda, proving that the great king had con- quered Magadha ; and this fact is confirmed by Tara- nath who tells us that Gopala "began to reign in Bengal, and afterwards conquered Magadha." Accord- ing to General Cunningham* he began his reign in 815 A. D., which is 40 years earlier than the date assigned by Dr. Mitra. Gopala's successor Dharmapala conquered Indra Raja, which General Cunningham takes to mean Barendra ; and he married Kanna Devi, daughter of Prabala, " Raja of many countries." Dharma- pala's successor Devapala was a great conqueror ; the inscriptions assign to him the conquest of Kamarupa an Orissa, and Taranath ascribes to him the subjugation of the whole of Northern India from the Himalaya to the Vindhya mountains. All these warlike expedi- tions of Devapala are said in one inscription to have been conducted by his brother Jayapala, whose son * Archaeological Survey of India, Vol. XV, p* 148. Digitized by Google CHAP. III.] BENGAL AND ORISSA. 245 Vigrahapala eventually succeeded to the throne after one or two short reigns omitted in Dr. Mitra's list. We learn from the Bhagal pur copper inscription that Vigra- h a pal a married the Haihaya princess Lajjd, and the Haihayas are believed to have been Rajputs. Vigraha- pala seems in the end to have abdicated saying to his son, " let penance be mine, and the kingdom thine." So Nirayanapala, his son, succeeded, and his Brahman minister Gurava Misraset up the celebrated Mangalbari Piliar near Buddal. Of the successors of Narayanapala little is known until we come to Mahipala who, according to Tar&nath, reigned fifty-two years ; and General Cunningham there- fore dates his reign from 1008 to 1060 A.D. The king of Orissa is said to have been tributary to this power- ful king.