A short-lived empire
A century after Harṣa's death, Yaśovarman assembled from Kannauj a territory reaching across the Ganga plain, and his campaigns are the subject of the Gauḍavaho — the slaying of the Gauḍa king — a Prakrit poem by his court poet Vākpatirāja. The poem is panegyric and its geography is expansive, describing an expedition east into Bengal, south to the Vindhyas and the coast, and back through the west.
His court also patronised Bhavabhūti, author of the Mālatīmādhava and of the Uttararāmacarita, which is among the most admired Sanskrit dramas and the most searching treatment of the Rāma story's later part.
Fall
Yaśovarman's ascendancy was ended by Lalitāditya Muktāpīḍa of Kashmir, who according to Kalhaṇa's Rājataraṅgiṇī defeated him and reduced him to a subordinate. The chronology is not exact and the Kashmiri source has its own interests, but Kannauj clearly passed out of his line's control.
The city then became the object of the tripartite struggle among the Gurjara-Pratihāras, the Pālas and the Rāṣṭrakūṭas that occupied the ninth century. Yaśovarman's reign is a reminder that the post-Harṣa north was not simply fragmented: it repeatedly threw up powers capable of assembling an empire, and none of them could hold it.
Further reading
- Bakker, Hans T. The World of the Skandapurana. Brill, 2014
- Bodhi, Bhikkhu. In the Buddha's Words. Wisdom Publications, 2005
- Coedes, George. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia. University of Hawaii Press, 1968
- Hawley, John Stratton. A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. Harvard University Press, 2015
- Nath, Vijay. Puranas and Acculturation. Munshiram Manoharlal, 2001
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.