Harshavardhana and Kannauj

Every five years, according to the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, King Harshavardhana held a great assembly at Prayag, where the Ganga meets the Yamuna, and gave away the wealth of his treasury to monks, Brahmins and the poor. In the end, the story goes, he gave away even his own clothes and borrowed a garment from his sister. Whether or not every detail is literal, the account shows how Harsha wanted to be seen: generous, pious and learned. His capital was Kannauj, in present-day Uttar Pradesh.

For UPPSC, Harsha sits at a useful junction. He closes the story of the Guptas and opens the early medieval period, and both halves of that story run through UP. Expect him in Prelims GS I as factual one-liners (sources, plays, the Narmada battle) and in the UP history part of the Mains (GS V) as an "assess" or "discuss" question.

Background: two families, one marriage

After the Gupta empire broke up in the sixth century, north India split into regional kingdoms. Two of them matter here:

• the Maukharis, who ruled from Kannauj;
• the Pushyabhutis (also called the Vardhanas), who ruled from Thanesar in present-day Haryana.

The two were linked by marriage. Harsha's sister Rajyashri married the Maukhari king Grahavarman. That alliance is what later brought Kannauj into Harsha's hands.

Harsha's rise

The sequence is a favourite of question setters, so learn it in order:

1. The ruler of Malwa killed Grahavarman and imprisoned Rajyashri at Kannauj.
2. Harsha's elder brother Rajyavardhana marched against Malwa but was killed by Shashanka, king of Gauda (Bengal).
3. Harsha came to the throne around 606 CE. The Harsha era is counted from this year.
4. He rescued Rajyashri, who had fled to the Vindhya forests, took over the Maukhari kingdom and made Kannauj his capital.

Against Shashanka, Harsha allied with Bhaskaravarman of Kamarupa (Assam).

The empire and its limits

At its height, Harsha's power reached across much of north India, from Punjab towards Bengal and Odisha. Much of it was not direct rule: many kings accepted his overlordship, paid tribute and kept their thrones.

His southward push was stopped by the Chalukya king Pulakeshin II of Badami, on the banks of the Narmada. The Aihole inscription, composed by the poet Ravikirti, records this victory from the Chalukya side. The Narmada thus became the practical frontier between the northern and southern powers of the time.

Sources, and how to read them

The last column is what most answers miss. Bana's Harsha is a hero; Xuanzang's is a patron of Buddhism above all. A good answer uses both, and says so.

Harsha as writer and patron

Harsha is credited with three Sanskrit plays:

• Ratnavali, a court comedy;
• Priyadarshika, also a romantic court play;
• Nagananda, on a Buddhist theme of self-sacrifice.

He supported scholars at his court, Bana above all, and patronised Nalanda in Bihar, where Xuanzang himself studied.

The two assemblies

Kannauj

Harsha held a great assembly at Kannauj in honour of Xuanzang, where Mahayana Buddhist doctrine was expounded before kings, monks and Brahmins.

Prayag

Every five years, Harsha held an assembly at Prayag, often called the Maha Moksha Parishad, marked by lavish charity. Xuanzang describes attending one. Some writers link this tradition with the later Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj, but the Kumbh has other roots as well, so write "some historians suggest a link" rather than stating it as fact.

Religion and administration

Harsha began as a worshipper of Shiva and the Sun and later showed strong sympathy for Mahayana Buddhism. He gave to all sects.

His administration, as Xuanzang and Bana describe it, was more feudal than the Gupta system:

• many samantas (feudatories) who kept their lands in return for loyalty and military help;
• officials often paid through land grants instead of cash;
• land revenue of about one-sixth of the produce, according to Xuanzang;
• the king touring the kingdom in person to keep control;
• weaker law and order than under the Guptas; Xuanzang was robbed on the roads.

After Harsha: the struggle for Kannauj

Harsha died around 647 CE without an heir, and his empire broke up quickly. Kannauj did not lose its prestige. In the eighth century, Yashovarman ruled from there and patronised the dramatist Bhavabhuti.

Then came the tripartite struggle, fought for roughly two centuries between three powers who each wanted Kannauj as proof of supremacy in north India:

The Pratiharas eventually held Kannauj, under Nagabhata II and later Mihira Bhoja. Later still, the Gahadavalas ruled from Kannauj and Varanasi until Jaichand was defeated by Muhammad Ghori at Chandawar in 1194.

Mains practice: one answer, planned

Question: "Kannauj was the symbol of imperial power in early medieval north India." Discuss. (UPPSC-style, about 200 words)

Outline:

• Introduction: Kannauj's rise from Maukhari capital to Harsha's capital.
• Why it mattered: geography (Ganga, doab, centre of the plain), Harsha's prestige, the city as a claim to paramountcy.
• Evidence: the tripartite struggle among Pratiharas, Palas and Rashtrakutas; later the Gahadavalas.
• Conclusion: the contest weakened all three powers; Kannauj's fall in 1194 opened the plain to Turkish rule.

Model answer (short):

After the Guptas, Kannauj rose from a Maukhari seat to the capital of Harshavardhana, who ruled much of north India from it in the first half of the seventh century. Its site on the Ganga, in the fertile doab and between the eastern and western plains, gave it wealth and strategic reach, and Harsha's reign gave it prestige.

That prestige outlived him. For about two centuries, the Gurjara-Pratiharas of the west, the Palas of Bengal and Bihar, and the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan fought the tripartite struggle for Kannauj, because holding it was a claim to paramountcy in the north. The Pratiharas finally held it under Nagabhata II and Mihira Bhoja, and later the Gahadavalas ruled from it.

The struggle drained all three powers. Jaichand's defeat at Chandawar in 1194 ended the era in which one city stood for power over north India.

A second question to plan yourself: "Assess Harsha as a ruler, using Banabhatta and Xuanzang as sources." Use the source table above, and give each source's bias one line.

Prelims practice

1. The Harshacharita was written by:
   • (a) Ravikirti
   • (b) Banabhatta
   • (c) Harishena
   • (d) Bhavabhuti
2. Which of these plays is NOT attributed to Harsha?
   • (a) Ratnavali
   • (b) Nagananda
   • (c) Priyadarshika
   • (d) Mudrarakshasa
3. Harsha's southward expansion was checked on the Narmada by:
   • (a) Pulakeshin II
   • (b) Shashanka
   • (c) Dharmapala
   • (d) Bhaskaravarman
4. Which pair is correctly matched?
   • (a) Harsha era: 78 CE
   • (b) Harsha era: 606 CE
   • (c) Harsha era: 319 CE
   • (d) Harsha era: 57 BCE
5. The tripartite struggle for Kannauj was fought among:
   • (a) Palas, Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas
   • (b) Guptas, Hunas and Maukharis
   • (c) Cholas, Chalukyas and Pallavas
   • (d) Palas, Senas and Gahadavalas

Answers:

1. (b) Banabhatta. Ravikirti wrote the Aihole inscription; Harishena wrote the Prayag prashasti; Bhavabhuti was at Yashovarman's court.
2. (d) Mudrarakshasa is by Vishakhadatta.
3. (a) Pulakeshin II, recorded in the Aihole inscription. Bhaskaravarman was Harsha's ally.
4. (b) 606 CE. The others are the Shaka era (78 CE), the Gupta era (319–20 CE) and the Vikram Samvat (57 BCE).
5. (a) Palas, Pratiharas and Rashtrakutas.

What to do next

• Write Harsha's rise as a four-step sequence from memory.
• Redraw the source table, with the bias column, without looking.
• Write the Kannauj answer above in your own words in 12 minutes.
• Revise the Gupta background in our guide to the Guptas and Uttar Pradesh, then move ahead to the Sultanate and Jaunpur.