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Mahipala I recovers Varendra

VictorPalasMahipala I
988vs
Usurpers holding north Bengal, generally taken to be the Kamboja rulersNot named in the grant

In the late tenth century the Palas had lost their own homeland of Varendra. Mahipala I won it back by force, and his grant says he recovered the paternal kingdom seized by those who had no right to it.

Date: c. 988 CE, early in Mahipala’s reignWhere: Varendra, north BengalType: Campaign
Photo: Sumitsurai · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Cite

MLA

“Mahipala I recovers Varendra.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/mahipala-i-recovers-varendra/. Accessed .

APA

Hindu History. (2026). Mahipala I recovers Varendra. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/mahipala-i-recovers-varendra/

Result

Mahipala I won back his ancestral kingdom in north Bengal and revived Pala power.

01The Bangarh grant

The Bangarh copper plate of Mahipala I, found near the ruins of Kotivarsha in Dinajpur, has a verse saying that he killed his enemies in battle by the strength of his arms and recovered his father’s kingdom, which had been taken over by people with no claim to it. The usurpers are usually identified with a family of Kamboja origin, one of whose kings is known from the Bangarh pillar inscription of 966 at the same site.

02The second founder

Mahipala reigned for about half a century and is often called the second founder of the Pala empire. He held Bengal and Bihar, restored monasteries at Nalanda and Bodh Gaya, and his name lived on in Bengali folk songs. His reign also saw the Chola Rajendra’s army reach the Ganga around 1021, and Chola records name a Mahipala among the kings it met. Pala inscriptions of his reign are found across Bihar, at Nalanda, Bodh Gaya and Sarnath among other places.

Rajendra Chola I
Person · Reigned 1014–1044 CE (co-regent from 1012)Rajendra Chola IRajendra, son of Rajaraja, took the Chola empire to its height. His army marched to the Ganga and brought its water home; his fleet crossed the Bay of Bengal and struck Srivijaya; and he built a new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram, the city of the Chola who took the Ganga.Read →
Why it matters

It saved the Pala dynasty and gave it another century and a half of rule in eastern India.

People 1

Rajendra Chola IRuler
Reigned 1014–1044 CE (co-regent from 1012)

Rajendra Chola I

Chola emperor who reached the Ganga and Srivijaya

Places 2

Nalanda MahaviharaExcavated
The Gupta Age

Nalanda Mahavihara

For some seven centuries the greatest seat of learning in Asia, with thousands of monks and teachers, libraries and royal grants from Kanauj to Sumatra. It was ruined in the raids on Bihar around 1200 and its brick courts were dug out from 1915.

Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh GayaStanding
The Gupta Age

Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya

The place under the Bodhi tree where Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment, the holiest site of the Buddhist world. Hindus who count the Buddha among Vishnu’s avatars come here too, and Hindu monks of the Giri order kept the temple for centuries.

Places near the battlefield 1

Kantajew Temple, KantanagarStanding
The Mughal era and the resistance

Kantajew Temple, Kantanagar

The finest terracotta temple of Bengal, raised by the rajas of Dinajpur over half a century and covered on every face with baked-clay panels of the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and Krishna’s lila. It once had nine towers; the earthquake of 1897 brought them all down.