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Pala dynasty

Gopala was chosen king to end a time of anarchy in Bengal, and his house ruled the east for four hundred years. They built Vikramashila and Somapura, and their black-stone and bronze images set the style for the whole eastern world.

  1. Gopala Ic. 750–770
  2. Dharmapalac. 770–810
  3. Devapalac. 810–850
  4. Narayanapalac. 854–908
  5. Rajyapalac. 908–940
  6. Gopala IIc. 940–960
  7. Vigrahapala IIc. 960–988
  8. +7
Period: c. 750–1161 CERegion: Bengal and Bihar; under Dharmapala and Devapala overlords of the Gangetic northCapitals: Pataliputra, Mudgagiri (Munger)
Photo: Md. Ahsanul Haque Nayem · CC BY-SA 4.0

01Chosen to end the fish-law

After Shashanka’s time Bengal fell into what the inscriptions call matsyanyaya, the law of the fishes, where the big swallow the small. The Khalimpur copper plate of Dharmapala says the people, the prakriti, made Gopala take the hand of Lakshmi to end it. His son Dharmapala made the Palas a great power. He fought for Kannauj, placed his own man Chakrayudha on its throne, and held a durbar there that the kings of the north attended. Devapala after him carried the Pala name to the Himalaya and the Vindhyas.

02Vikramashila and Somapura

Dharmapala founded Vikramashila on the Ganga in Bhagalpur district and the vast Somapura vihara at Paharpur, now in Bangladesh, with its terraced central shrine and 177 cells around the court. Nalanda flourished under Pala protection. Devapala’s Nalanda copper plate records five villages given at the request of Balaputradeva, the Shailendra king of Suvarnadvipa, for a monastery he had built there. From Vikramashila the teacher Atisha Dipankara left for Tibet in the 1040s. The workshops of Bihar and Bengal turned out images of Vishnu, Surya, Uma-Maheshvara and the Buddha in polished black stone and in bronze.

Pataliputra
Place · Fortified by Ajatashatru, made capital by Udayin, 5th century BCEPataliputraCapital of Magadha, of the Nandas, the Mauryas and the Guptas, on the Ganga where the Son once joined it. Under modern Patna lie the timber palisade Megasthenes described and the pillared hall of the Mauryas.Read →

03Ramapala and the last century

Mahipala I rebuilt the kingdom around 988, though Rajendra Chola’s northern army defeated him on its march to the Ganga. In the reign of Mahipala II the Kaivarta chief Divya rose in revolt and took Varendra, north Bengal. His brother Ramapala won it back with the help of his feudatories, and Sandhyakaranandi told the story in the Ramacharita, a poem that reads in two senses at once, as the tale of Shri Rama and of Ramapala. After Ramapala the Senas rose from within the Pala lands, and Madanapala, the last notable king, lost Bengal to them.

The rulers

  1. 1Gopala IChosen to end the matsyanyayac. 750–770
  2. 2DharmapalaFounded Vikramashila and Somapurac. 770–810
  3. 3DevapalaNalanda copper platec. 810–850
  4. 4Narayanapalac. 854–908
  5. 5Rajyapalac. 908–940
  6. 6Gopala IIc. 940–960
  7. 7Vigrahapala IIc. 960–988
  8. 8Mahipala IRevived the kingdomc. 988–1038
  9. 9Nayapalac. 1038–1055
  10. 10Vigrahapala IIIc. 1055–1070
  11. 11Mahipala IIKilled in the Kaivarta revoltc. 1070–1075
  12. 12RamapalaRecovered Varendra; subject of the Ramacharitac. 1077–1130
  13. 13Kumarapalac. 1130–1140
  14. 14MadanapalaLast notable Pala kingc. 1144–1161

What they left

  • Vikramashila mahavihara, Bhagalpur
  • Somapura mahavihara, Paharpur
  • The Pala school of black-stone and bronze sculpture
  • Ramacharita of Sandhyakaranandi

People

DharmapalaRuler
Reigned c. 775–810 CE

Dharmapala

Pala emperor of Bengal and Bihar

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

Rajendra Chola I

Chola emperor who reached the Ganga and Srivijaya

Places

PataliputraExcavated
The Maurya Empire

Pataliputra

Capital of Magadha, of the Nandas, the Mauryas and the Guptas, on the Ganga where the Son once joined it. Under modern Patna lie the timber palisade Megasthenes described and the pillared hall of the Mauryas.

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.

Odantapuri MahaviharaDestroyed
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Odantapuri Mahavihara

A Pala-era monastery at what is now Bihar Sharif, whose plan served as the model for Samye, the first monastery of Tibet. It is the vihara most scholars identify in the Tabaqat-i-Nasiri’s account of Bakhtiyar Khalji’s sack of ‘the fort of Bihar’.

Vikramashila MahaviharaExcavated
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Vikramashila Mahavihara

The Pala kings’ own university on the Ganga at Antichak, near Bhagalpur, founded by Dharmapala. Its most famous teacher, Atisha Dipankara, carried its learning to Tibet; it was destroyed around 1203.

Somapura Mahavihara (Paharpur)Excavated
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Somapura Mahavihara (Paharpur)

The largest monastery south of the Himalayas, built by the Pala king Dharmapala in Varendra, north Bengal: a square of 177 cells round a towering cross-shaped shrine. Its terracotta plaques show Krishna, Balarama and scenes of the Ramayana beside the Buddhist figures.

Battles

The tripartite struggle for Kanyakubja

For over a century three empires fought for Harsha’s old capital, Kanyakubja. Whoever held it claimed to be master of Aryavarta.

c. 780s–916 CE

Rajendra Chola’s march to the Ganga

A Chola army marched a thousand miles north, beat the kings of Odisha and Bengal, and brought back Ganga water in pots. Rajendra built a new capital to mark it: Gangaikonda Cholapuram.

c. 1019–1023 CE

Evidence

Nalanda copper plate of DevapalaInscription
9th century CE, reign of Devapala

Nalanda copper plate of Devapala

The Pala king Devapala grants five villages to a monastery at Nalanda built by Balaputradeva, the Shailendra king of Suvarnadvipa (Sumatra).

On the timeline

  • c. 750 CE

    Bengal chooses Gopala as kingPolity

    The Khalimpur plate says the people made Gopala king to end matsya-nyaya, the law of the fish, where the big swallow the small. So began the Pala line.