of a small strip of territory in the north-west corresponding to Hiuen Tsang's Mo-ti-pu-lo. It will probably be urged against this view that the institution and employment of the Harṣa era indicate that a larger extent of territory was under the sway of Harṣavardhana. Mr. Panikkar contends that "eras are established only by kings claiming to be sovereign of the whole of Aryavarta." 45 Of this however there is no evidence. There is no evidence that the Sakas or Cedis ever established an empire embracing a considerable portion of northern India, and even the Guptas never fully succeeded in accomplishing the task; yet there is an era associated with every one of them. Then let us examine a little more closely the facts connected with use of Harṣa era. Kielhorn's list of inscriptions of Northern India contain only twenty that were "dated according to the Harsa era." These may be classified as follows: I. Two inscriptions of Harṣavardhana himself (528-529). II. Eleven inscriptions from Nepal (Nos. 530-534, 536-541). III. One inscription of Aditya Sena of Magadh (No. 535). IV. Two Pratihāra inscriptions (Nos. 542, 544). V. Four miscellaneous inscriptions (Nos. 543, 545-547) one from some place in the Punjab, one from Khajuraho, one from Pehevä (Pehoa) in the Karnal district, and one from Panjaur near Thanesar. Of these the ascription of the eleven inscriptions of Class II to the arşi era is, as already stated above, at best doubtful, and Kielhorn has himself put a query against each of them. The date of two inscriptions of Class IV was wrongly read as 155 and 158 and therefore ascribed to the Harṣa era. As Professor Bhandarkar has shown, the correct reading of these dates should be 955 and 958 they are to be referred to the Vikrama era. 46 Thus excluding Harsa's own inscriptions, we know of only five which may be referred to the Harsa era, for none of them, be it noted, distinctly refers to the era as such. Of these five, 45 Op. Cit., p. 19. 46 J. Bo. Br. R. A. S., Vol. XXI., pp. 405 ff., 413ff. three belong to localities which are included within Harea's dominions indicated above, the findplace of the fourth is uncertain, it being discovered in "some place in the Punjab," and the fifth is found at Khajuraho a few miles from the borderland between United Provinces and Bundelkhand. Thus even if we hold that an era could only be employed in territories which were once within the jurisdiction of its royal founder-which is by no means an established fact, the extant evidence about the employment of the Harṣa era in epigraphic records is fully in agreement with our views about the extent of Harsa's kingdom. That Harṣa era never held any important position in India also follows from Alberuni's account. He notes that the era was used in his time in Mathura and the country of Kanauj. 47 Thus every available evidence indicates that the era never obtained any wide currency and its use was limited to the area we have indicated above as the dominions of Harṣa. Having thus demonstrated the extent of Harṣavardhana's empire we may now proceed to the second part of the proposition referred to at the beginning of this paper. It has been held, that Harṣavardhana was the last great Hindu emperor in Northern India, and that no importance attaches to its history since his reign inasmuch as there was only conflict of petty states without any attempt at unification by any sovereign authority, such as was successfully carried out by Harṣa. Such a proposition might have been excused before the discovery of the epigraphic records of the Pālas and the Pratihāras, but it is somewhat disconcerting to find even modern scholars repeating a statement which is not only unwarranted by any authority but demonstrably false. I leave aside for the time being the previous discussions about Harṣa's kingdom, but accept the current theory as to its extent for the sake of argument. Now would anybody maintain that Dharmapala's empire as described in verse 12 of the Khalimpur Copperplate 48 was less in extent than that of Harṣa? In the case of Dharmapal we do 47 Alberuni's India-Sachau-Vol. II., p. 5. 48 Ep. Ind., Vol. IV., p. 243. meet with vague general expressions about the extent of his empire, but the king of Bengal is said to have exercised sway over Bhoja, Matsya, Madra, Kuru, Yadu, Yavana, Avanti, Gandhara and Kira countries and to have proceeded as far as Himalaya in the north and Gokarna in the south. His son and successor Devapala is not only described in general terms as lord of the whole of India, but is specially referred to as having conquered Kamarupa and Utkal, and defeated the Hūnas, Gurjaras and Dravidas. The Pāla empire was not only greater in extent but also endured for a longer time than the empire of Harșa. Even a remote descendant of Dharmapāla in the eleventh century A.D. ruled as far as Benares. Yet Harṣavardhana's empire is regarded as the last great empire in Northern India ! It may of course be argued that full reliance cannot be placed on the inscriptions of the Palas-but the same argument applies with still greater force in the case of Harṣa, for in one case we have specific reference to conquered countries in a contemporary record open to public inspection, while in the other we have merely general expressions of greatness in the pages written by an admiring friend. Then we have the Pratihāra emperors Bhoja I and Mahendra Pāla. Bhoja I ruled over the whole of Northern India west of Magadha with the exception of Kasmir and Sind and probably also of Chedi, while his son and successor Mahendra Paladeva added a considerable portion of Magadha to the empire. Here again we find an empire not only larger in extent but longer in duration than the empire of Harṣa. 49 In the face of all these it is difficult to maintain either that "the heavy burden of empire which Harsa took upon himself and maintained for more than forty years was not to be borne in future by a single man, "or that " the death of Harsa gave free scope to a host of petty local dynasties and we cease to feel interest in the history of India till the appearance of the Mussulmans." Ideas like these are now commonly held and freely 49 See my paper on the " Gurjara-Pratīhāras ", Journal of the Department of Letters, Calcutta University, Vol. X., p. 55ff. pressed by writers on Indian history and some even draw from them important inferences about the future destiny of India. 50 The truth of the matter seems to be that Harṣavardhana was fortunate in possessing an overzealous admirer to record an exaggerated account of his life and reign whereas his successors had none to tell their tale. It is one of those accidents of History which have succeeded in all ages and countries to destroy the true perspective view of events, at least for a considerable period. But truth, like murder, will be out at last. We have discussed above the reliability of Hiuen Tsang's account of Harsa's empire and we propose to discuss in a separate paper the reliability of his version of the early life of Harsa and topics connected therewith. Cf. e.g. the last paragraph of Chapter XIII of V. Smith's Early History of India (3rd edition), p. 358, The Indian mind was passing through a serious crisis, and was in the travail of a great re-birth. Old ideals had become outworn. They had lost their force, and to a great extent, their meaning. A deep discontent with things ephemeral and a yearning for the eternal characterised the earlier Upanishads. Sadly exclaims the rishi in the Kathopanishad. "Sasyamiva martyah pacyate, sasyamivā-jāyate punaḥ.” "Like crops mortals mature and die, and like crops they are born again." Avidhyāyan varṇaratipramodāna tidirghejivite ko rameta." A student in the Chandogya Upanishad approaches his teacher and asks him," Bhagavanechoka sya pâram tārayatu" (Sir, take me across the river of sorrow). In the same Upanishad the teacher addresses the student and says, "Yo bai Bhūmā tat sukham, nalpe sukham asti" (That which is Bhūmā, Vast, is sukham or joy, there is no joy in Alpam or that which is small). The pursuit of the limited brings no joy. There is joy only in seeking that which is beyond limit. In the Vajaseniya Brahmopanishad, Jajnavalkya offered to divide his wealth between his two wives as he was retiring into |