Rajyavardhana beat the Malava army but was killed by Shashanka; the crisis brought the sixteen-year-old Harsha to the throne.
01Bana’s account
Banabhatta, who later lived at Harsha’s court, tells it in the Harshacharita. Prabhakaravardhana died at Thanesar. The news came at once that the king of Malava had killed Grahavarman, the Maukhari king of Kanyakubja and husband of the princess Rajyashri, and had thrown her into prison with fetters on her feet. Rajyavardhana rode out with ten thousand horse, routed the Malava army with little effort, and was then lured by false courtesy into the camp of the Gauda king Shashanka, who killed him. Harsha’s own copper plates of Banskhera and Madhuban confirm the core: his brother died in the house of the enemy, keeping his word.
02Harsha’s answer
Harsha, about sixteen, took a vow to clear the earth of Gaudas and marched. His first concern was his sister. Rajyashri had escaped into the Vindhya forest, and Bana describes Harsha finding her at the moment she was about to enter a fire. Kanyakubja, left without a Maukhari king, passed to Harsha, who made it his capital, and from then on Kannauj was the prize of northern India for three centuries. Shashanka was not destroyed; he ruled Gauda until his death around 625, and Harsha’s eastern conquests came only after.
The war put Harsha on the throne and made Kanyakubja the imperial city of the north, the seat later fought over by the Palas, Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas.