Gurjara-Pratiharas

01Doorkeepers of the west

Mihira Bhoja’s Gwalior prashasti traces the family to Lakshmana, who served Shri Rama as his pratihara, his doorkeeper, and the name suited them. After the Arabs took Sindh in 712, their governors sent raids into Rajasthan, Gujarat and Malwa. Nagabhata I, the prashasti says, crushed the great armies of the mlecchas. Around the 730s the raiders were broken by the kings of the west: Nagabhata, the Chalukya Pulakeshi of Lata, whose Navsari plates of 739 record his victory, and the Guhilas of Mewar. Where the Pratiharas first ruled from, Bhinmal or Ujjain, is still argued.

02Mihira Bhoja and Kannauj

Nagabhata II took Kannauj around 816 after the long three-way struggle with the Palas and the Rashtrakutas. His grandson Mihira Bhoja reigned for about fifty years and ruled from the Sutlej to Bengal’s border and down to Saurashtra. His silver coins carry the boar of Vishnu and the name Shrimad Adivaraha. The Arab merchant Sulaiman, writing in 851, said the king of Juzr kept the finest cavalry of all the princes of India and was the most hostile to the Arabs. His son Mahendrapala I kept the poet Rajashekhara as his guru, and the plays and the Kavyamimamsa were written at Kannauj.

Person · Reigned c. 730–760 CENagabhata INagabhata I raised the Gurjara-Pratiharas from a western chiefdom to a power, and in the years after the fall of Sindh he threw back the Arab armies that had broken into Rajasthan and Malwa. His descendants later held Kanyakubja and most of the north.Read →

03Decline and Mahmud

Indra III the Rashtrakuta sacked Kannauj around 916, and from then the feudatories, Chandelas, Paramaras, Chaulukyas and Kalachuris, made themselves kings. When Mahmud of Ghazni reached Kannauj in the winter of 1018, Rajyapala left the city without a fight. The Chandela Vidyadhara, angered, had him killed. The line lingered round Kannauj and Kara under Trilochanapala and Yashahpala, the last known by an inscription of 1036. Their temples remain: the Bateshwar group near Morena, the Harihara temples at Osian, and the Teli ka Mandir on Gwalior fort.

The rulers

1. 1Nagabhata ITurned back the Arab raidsc. 730–760
2. 2Kakustha and Devarajac. 760–775
3. 3VatsarajaDefeated by the Rashtrakuta Dhruvac. 775–805
4. 4Nagabhata IITook Kannaujc. 805–833
5. 5Ramabhadrac. 833–836
6. 6Mihira BhojaAdivaraha; height of the empirec. 836–885
7. 7Mahendrapala IPupil and patron of Rajashekharac. 885–910
8. 8Mahipala IKannauj sacked by Indra IIIc. 912–944
9. 9Mahendrapala IIc. 944–948
10. 10Vijayapalac. 954–990
11. 11RajyapalaLeft Kannauj to Mahmud, 1018c. 990–1019
12. 12Trilochanapalac. 1019–1027
13. 13YashahpalaLast known kingc. 1036

What they left

• Bateshwar group of temples, Morena
• The early temples of Osian
• Gwalior prashasti of Mihira Bhoja
• Rajashekhara’s Kavyamimamsa and Karpuramanjari