ee a eT 
Vol. VII, No. 11.] The Belkhara Inscription. 769 
[N.S.] 
‘¢ Bilad-ul-Hind’’ ‘‘the country of India,’’ and it appears 
certain that this coin also was struck in honour of the on oh 
Unfortunately the date of this coin is irrecoverably g 
otherwise the date of the taking of Kanauj like that of N Ediah 
would have been settled. But it is certain that the city of 
Kanauj was taken some time during the reign of Altamsh, i.e. 
between a.H. 607—633 = a.p. 1210-—i235. It is more probable 
that the actual conquest took place in the year a.H. 623 = A.D 
1226, when Malik Nasir-ud-din Mahmiid was placed in charge 
of the province of Oudh and when Bartu or Britu was over- 
thrown. It coincides with the date of the evacuation of the 
Upper provinces by Seoji and Saitaéram, as recorded in the 
Bardic chronicles. In a couplet quoted by Cunningham on 
the authority of Mukji the Bard of the Khichi Chauhans, the 
date of the migration is Vikrama Samvat 1283=a.D. 1226= 
A.H. 623. 
The Bithu inscription of Siha the Rathoda, recently a 
lished by Mr. D. R. Bhandarkar, shows that even in 1273 4 
it was known that Siha was the son of Prince Setram; ‘80 
the names handed down by tradition are genuine. The date 
of the Bithu inscription, v.s. 1330, also shows that v.s. 1283 
as the date of the re emigration is not improbable 
Ind. Ant., vol. xl, p. 181 f. 
Thus the bar ir of the ancient city of Kanauj by the 
Muhammadans took place thirty-three years after the battle 
of Chandawar and the death of rae ck Secaeomidl _ twenty-six 
years after the last date in the Machlishahr gra. 
History has hitherto failed to record the go Ne of the 
boy-king, the last of the proud Gahadavalas, who came to the 
throne at the age of eighteen, to face difficulties at the —- of 
which many a war-worn veteran would have turned pale The 
and the fortunes of a falling kingdom, situated right in the 
heart’ of the newly-formed empire of religious zealots. The 
Punjab was lost a couple of centuries ago and the Chauhan 
had fallen. After the battle of Chandawar practically the 
whole of the Antarvedi, i.e. the Ganges-Jumna-Doab, 
fallen into the hands of the victors, and immediately ‘after- 
wards the last remnant of the Pala Empire had disappeared. 
Bengal was torn by internal dissensions and had fallen an easy 
victim to the marauding expeditions of Muhammad Bukhtiyar 
Khilji, and the royal family had taken refuge in the water- 
bone strongholds of Eastern Bengal. Only the last Gahada- 
vala was making a stand for a remnant of his ancestral 
dominions. The very name of the last king of the Gahadavala 
