RĀMACARITA. Nagavaloka, a prince of Guzrat, was very prosperous in the year 756 (Epi Ind., vol. ix, p. 251). The founder of Chahumana family was one of his favoured officers (Epi. Ind., vol. ii, p. 121). But some time after this he was severely beaten by Karkarāja (Epi. Ind., vol. ix, p. 253), who sacked his capital, and Parabala was Karkarāja's son. So a century must have elapsed between Karkarāja and Parabala and it is not impossible for Dharmapala to marry a daughter of Parabala. The date of Dharmapala, therefore, must fall between 783 A.D. when Indra was reigning at Kanauj, and 817 when Govinda's son became king on the death of his father, and in an early part of this period to allow so many wars to come in succession. By the conquest of Kanauj, Dharmapala made himself master of Northern India, with the kings of Bhoja (Malwa), Matsya (Jaypur), Extent of his empire. Madra (Punjab), Kuru (Sirhind), Jadu (Khandes), Avanti (eastern Malwa), Gandhāra (Peshwar), and Kira (the borderland), acknowledging his su- premacy; practically he had imperial sway over the whole Aryavarta about the year 800. How long the Palas were able to keep this vast continent under their sway, there is no means of knowing. But it is sure that they held North-Western India through their dependant, the king of Kanauj. Nagabhata's conquest of Kanauj was a mere raid. He found the king to be dependent and he looted the capital. His raid produced no lasting result. So was Govinda's conquest a mere raid. To anticipate events, the fact that a Buddhist monk of Kaniska Vihara near Peshwar was appointed the abbot of Nalanda by Devapala, the successor of Dharmapala, shows that even Devapāla enjoyed the sovereignty of the vast territory acquired by his father. The extent of Dharmapala's empire and his influence on the whole of India is exemplified by the fact that his servants bathed not only in Kedara in the Himalayas, at the mouth of the Ganges, but even at Gokarna on the Malabar coast. The vast extent of the empire and the prosperity which it enjoyed, though disturbed by occasional raids, enabled Dharmapala to undertake the reformation of religion It is a well-known fact that Prajña-pãramitã was written by Nagarjuna about the middle of the second century A.D., and it was the great book of the Mahayanists. But Maitreya, the founder of another sect, wrote a Karikā in 8 chapters, entitled Abhisamayālaṇkāra, with the avowed object of giving a new interpretation to the Prajñã Paramitã; and shortly after, the Prajñā Pāramitā was recast in 8 chapters with 25 thousand slokas under the name of the Pancavimsati- Sahasrika Prajña-pãramitã. The book became very popular. It was thrice translated into Chinese before Houen Tsang, twice between 265 and 316 A.D. The Prajñā Paramita underwent several recasts between the time of Nagarjuna and Houen Tsang. In Dharmapala's time it became absolutely necessary to simplify the study of this -pre-eminently the book of the Mahayanist school, and so he encouraged a learned Buddhist scholar of his time, Haribhadra by name, to write a commentary on the Aṣṭa-Sahasrika, according to doctrines of Maitreya. The commentary embodied the ideas of Nagarjuna as well as of Maitreya. It was written by Hari- bhadra at Trikūṭaka Vihāra under the protection of Dharmapala some time after his Reformation of Mahayana School of Buddhism.
