Kirtivarman and Gopala defeat Karna

01The play and the war

Krishna Mishra’s Prabodhachandrodaya, an allegorical drama in which Viveka, discrimination, defeats Mahamoha, great delusion, was staged at Kirtivarman’s court. Its prologue says that Gopala, the king’s friend and general, had uprooted the mighty Karna, who had destroyed the kings of the earth, and had raised Kirtivarman again to his throne, as Bhagwan Vishnu raised the earth. Chandela inscriptions, including the Mau stone record, also speak of the victory over Karna.

02The Chandela revival

Kirtivarman reigned for some three decades after this. The Chandela state, which had seemed broken, recovered its old lands around Mahoba, Khajuraho and Kalinjar, and his name survives in the Kirat Sagar lake at Mahoba. The play composed for his court became a classic of Advaita Vedanta in dramatic form and was copied and imitated across India for centuries. Karna himself lived on as a powerful king, but his reach into Bundelkhand was ended for good.

Dynasty · c. 831–1315 CEChandelas of JejakabhuktiFeudatories of the Pratiharas who became masters of Bundelkhand in the tenth century. They built the temples of Khajuraho and held Kalinjar against Mahmud of Ghazni.Read →