Maukhari dynasty

Kannauj

The Maukharis rose in the vacuum left by Gupta collapse, taking the country along the Ganga around Kanyakubja. Under them Kannauj replaced Pāṭaliputra as the political centre of northern India — a position it held for the next four centuries, and for which the Gurjara-Pratihāras, Pālas and Rāṣṭrakūṭas would fight in the ninth century.

Their inscriptions, including the Haraha and Asirgarh records, describe wars against the Hūṇas, the Andhras and the Gauḍas, and they took imperial titles from the middle of the sixth century.

The end of the line

The Maukharis were locked in a long rivalry with the Later Guptas of Magadha, and allied by marriage with the Puṣyabhūti house of Thanesar: Grahavarman Maukhari married Rājyaśrī, sister of Harṣa. He was killed and Kannauj taken, in an attack the sources attribute to the Later Gupta king Devagupta and to Śaśāṅka of Gauḍa; Rājyaśrī's brother Rājyavardhana was killed in the campaign that followed.

Harṣa succeeded at Thanesar, recovered his sister, and was offered the Maukhari throne. The union of the two kingdoms under him created the empire that dominated northern India for the next forty years, and Kannauj became his capital.