Mahasenagupta’s victory on the Lauhitya

01The record

The Aphsad inscription says that Mahasenagupta’s great fame, marked by the victory in war over the illustrious Susthitavarman, was still sung by the Siddhas on the banks of the Lauhitya. Susthitavarman is known from the Nidhanpur plates of his son Bhaskaravarman as a king of the Varman line of Kamarupa. The verse places the fighting on the Brahmaputra, which means Mahasenagupta marched well into Kamarupa, or met its army on the river’s western reaches.

02Changing alliances

Mahasenagupta was the brother-in-law, or by some readings the maternal grandfather, of the Pushyabhuti line of Thanesar, and his sons Kumaragupta and Madhavagupta grew up at the court of Prabhakaravardhana with Harsha. A generation later Bhaskaravarman of Kamarupa became Harsha’s ally against Shashanka of Gauda. The old quarrel on the Lauhitya had turned into friendship. Bhaskaravarman’s alliance with Harsha is recorded both in Banabhatta’s Harshacharita and by Xuanzang, who stayed at his court.

Dynasty · c. 350–1140 CE (Varman, Mlechchha and Pala houses)KamarupaKamarupa, the Pragjyotisha of the Mahabharata, was ruled by three houses in turn for about eight centuries. Its best-known king, Bhaskaravarman, was Harsha’s ally and the host of the pilgrim Xuanzang.Read →