Bengal under the later Palas and the Senas
Sheltered by the Kalachuris and the early Gahadavalas who for more than a century protected the Madhya-desa against a rush of invasion from the north-west, the local dynasts of Eastern India passed through vicissitudes of a different kind. The name of the Pala sovereign of Gauda was still invoked in distant Benares as late as AD 1026. In the following decades, the Palas entered into close relations with Lakshmi Karna, the great king of Chedi. The passing away of Karna almost coincided with a fresh disaster that fell to the lot of the Gauda empire. A local rising in North Bengal drove the Palas from Varendri. The power of the house of Dharmapala was restored by Ramapala, mainly with the assistance of his Rashtrakuta relations. But the restored kingdom had no long lease of life left to it, being ultimately overthrown in Bengal by Vijaya Sena, scion of a family that came from the Deccan. The struggle between indigenous and foreign military chieftains in Bengal ended in the victory of the latter.
The conqueror founded a new line, that of the Senas. The ancestors of the new king came from Karnata in the Deccan. They established a principality in Western Bengal which came into prominence under Samanta Sena. Samanta Sena seems to have retained some connection with his southern compatriots. After him came Hemanta Sena. Vijaya Sena, son of Hemanta Sena, allied himself with the illustrious family of the Suras and founded the independent sovereignty of his own dynasty. He vanquished the king of Gauda, apparently of Pala lineage, and the neighboring princes of North Bihar, Assam and Orissa. He also laid the foundation of the city of Vijayapura in Western Bengal, which became the metropolis of the Sena family. Vikramapura in Eastern Bengal, which was apparently conquered from the Yadava Varmans, possibly served as the second capital. It was certainly graced occasionally by the presence of the Sena sovereign.
The son and successor of Vijaya Sena was Ballala Sena, a name famous in Bengali legend as the reputed founder of Kulinism, a system of nobility. He is also credited with the authorship of two notable works, the Danasagara and the Adbhutasagara.
Ballala Sena’s son, Lakshmana Sena, probably began to rule in AD 1178-1179 or 1184-1185, though some scholars push the date of his accession much further back and regard him as the founder of the Lakshmana Sena era of AD 1119. He seems to have served his apprenticeship in the work of government as viceroy or military governor in charge of some district in Kalinga. On coming to the throne, he distinguished himself as a conqueror and a patron of learning. He claims to have pushed his conquests as far as Kalinga, reduced Kamarupa to subjection and vanquished the king of Benares, who is no other than the Gahadavala king of Kanauj. Among the poets who graced his court, the most eminent were Jayadeva, the author of the Gita-Govinda, and Dhoyi, the author of the Pavanaduta. The last-mentioned work contains an interesting description of the Sena capital. The Senas, however, failed to stem the tide of Muslim invasion once the dyke erected by the Gahadavalas was broken. Rai Lakhmaniya, usually identified with Lakshmana Sena, had to flee before the advancing arms of Malik Ikhtiyar-ud-din Muhammad Khalji towards the close of the twelfth or early in the thirteenth century. His sons, Visvarupa Sena and Kesava Sena, maintained the struggle against the “Garga Yavanas”, that is to say, the Muslim invaders from the Kabul valley, and preserved their independence in Eastern Bengal till the latter half of the thirteenth century.
The Later Chalukyas and the Cholas
Karnata, the home territory of the Senas, was from 973 to 1190 dominated, with a short intermission, by the Chalukya family established by Taila II. While the Shahis of Udabhanda were trying to defend the northwestern gates of India against the Turks of Ghazni, the Chalukyas were engaged in bitter feuds with the Paramaras of Malwa and the Cholas of Tanjore. They do not appear to have actually helped the foreign invaders like their predecessors, the Rashtrakutas. The Cholas under Rajaraja I and his famous son, Rajendra Chola I conquered nearly the whole of the present Madras Presidency. The generals of Rajendra carried their arms as far as the Ganges, while Chola admirals asserted their authority over several overseas territories including Ceylon, the Nicobar Islands and parts of the Malay Peninsula and the Archipelago. Rajendra inflicted a defeat on Mahipala I of Bengal. He also vanquished the Chalukya king of the Deccan plateau at Musangi. The prestige of the Chalukya arms was restored, to a certain extent, by Somesvara Ahavamalla at Koppam, but he suffered a crushing defeat at Kudal Sangamam at the hands of a son of Rajendra Chola I. In the last quarter of the eleventh and first quarter of the twelfth century the sovereignty of the Deccan was shared between Vikramaditya VI, the second son of Abavamalla and Rajendra Chola (III) Kulottunga 1, son of a daughter of Rajendra Chola I. As already stated above, Vikramaditya VI established a new era in the place of the old reckoning of the ‘Saka’ king, and his example was followed by Siddharaja Jayasimha of Gujarat. The reign of Vikramaditya VI stands as a landmark in the history of Hindu law, and saw the composition of a famous digest by the great jurist Vijnanesvara. Poetry was also cultivated at the Chalukya court, and the celebrated author Bilhana wrote his Vikramankadeva-charita, or Deeds of Vikramaditya, to commemorate the achievements of his patron. Somesvara III, son and successor of Vikramaditya VI, was also a writer of repute.
Sometime after the death of Somesvara III, the power of the Chalukyas of Kalyana was temporarily eclipsed by Bijjala Kalachurya and his sons. After 1190 the empire of Kalyana split up into three parts, namely, the kingdom of Devagiri founded by the Yadavas, the kingdom of Warangal governed by the Kakatiyas and the kingdom of Dorasamudra ruled by the Hoysalas. The Chola empire also declined after Rajendra Chola Kulottunga. The southern part of the Chola dominions fell into the hands of the Pandyas. The home provinces formed a battle-ground between the Hoysalas , the Kakatiyas and other powers. In the country between the Godavari and the Ganges which had once been overrun by the great Rajendra Chola I, rose the empire of the Eastern Gangas of Kalinga and Orissa.
Successors of the Imperial Chalukyas and Cholas
The independent Yadava kingdom of Devagiri was founded by Bhillama and was raised by his grandson Singhana to the position of the premier kingdom of the Deccan. Learning was encouraged, and a collegeyadavas of devigiri coin of astronomy was established for the study of the works of Bhaskaracharya, the celebrated astronomer. The age of the later Yadavas saw the composition of the famous works of Hemadri, Bopadeva, and Jnanesvara. The rulers of Devagiri, however, proved unequal to the task of defending the Deccan against the northern invader in the manner of Gautamiputra and Pulakesin II of old. In 1294 the troops of Ala-ud-din Khalji swooped down upon Devagiri and exacted a heavy contribution from Ramachandra, the Yadava king. In 1306-1307 Malik Kafur again invaded the Yadava dominions and forced the king to pay tribute. The son of Ramachandra was killed about 1307. Hindu sovereignty in Maharashtra came to an end and was not restored till the seventeenth century.
The Kakatiyas rose to power under Prolaraja II. His grandson, Ganapati, extended his dominions as far as Kanchi in the south. The kingdom flourished under Rudramma, daughter of Ganapati, who is highly extolled by the Venetian traveller, Marco Polo. The power of the dynasty was destroyed by the Sultans of Delhi early in the fourteenth century.
The Pandya kingdom, which won fame in the thirteenth century as the dominant power in the Tamil country and a great centre of international trade, was overrun by Kafur early in the fourteenth century. After a brief period of Muslim rule, it was absorbed into the empire of Vijayanagar.
Orissa became a powerful kingdom under Anantavarman Choda Ganga whose descendants defended their dominions with some amount of success against the Muslim conquerors of Bengal. The Ganga line came to an end in 1434 when it was supplanted by the famous Kapilendra. The royal family founded by him was also very powerful and ruled over an extensive empire. The kings successfully defended Orissa against the attacks of Muslim rulers from the north and west, and sometimes even invaded their dominions. It was not till 1568 that Orissa was finally conquered by the Muslims.
Like the Rajput kingdoms of the north, the princes of Southern India failed to offer a combined resistance to invaders and fell one by one. Only the Hindus beyond the Krishna and the Tungabhadra, rallied under the banner of Harihara and Bukka, and for several centuries maintained their independence in the far south of India.