Dhruva II of Lata repels the Pratiharas

01The Bagumra grant

The Gujarat Rashtrakutas were a branch set up by Govinda III, who gave Lata to his brother Indra. By the 860s their relations with the main line at Manyakheta had soured. The Bagumra plates of Dhruva II, dated Shaka 789, which is 867, say he defeated the strong army of the Gurjara, while also facing the hostility of the Vallabha, the Manyakheta king, and of his own relatives. The Gurjara here is Mihira Bhoja, who was pressing south and west in these years.

02The frontier on the Narmada

Lata, with its port of Broach, was the gate between the Pratihara north and the Rashtrakuta Deccan. Dhruva II’s stand kept it in Rashtrakuta hands for the time being. A few years later Krishna II of Manyakheta absorbed the Lata branch, and the struggle with the Pratiharas over Gujarat and Malwa continued between the two great houses directly. The Pratihara hold on Saurashtra in these years is shown by grants of their feudatories there, so the Lata frontier was under pressure from two sides.

Dynasty · c. 730–1036 CEGurjara-PratiharasFor three centuries the Pratiharas held the western gate of India against the Arab armies of Sindh. From Kannauj, under Mihira Bhoja, they ruled the largest kingdom of the north since Harsha.Read →