RAMACARITA. 
5 
Extent of his empire. 
Nagavaloka, a prince of Guzrat, was very prosperous in the year 756 (Epi 
Inch, 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 
Karkaraja (Epi. Ind., vol. ix, p. 253), who sacked his capital, and Parabala was 
Karkaraja’s son. So a century must have elapsed between Karkaraja 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), 
Madra (Punjab), Kuru (Sirhind), Jadu (Khandes), Avanti 
(eastern Malwa), Gandhara (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 
Devapala 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 Praj ha-par amita 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 Karika in 
8 chapters, entitled Abhisamayalankara, with the avowed object of giving a new 
interpretation to the Prajna Paramita; and shortly after, the Prajna Paramita 
was recast in 8 chapters with 25 thousand slokas under the name of the Pailcavimsati- 
Sahasrika Prajna-paramita. The book became very popular. It was thrice translated 
into Chinese before Houen Tsang, twice between 265 and 316 A.D. The Prajna 
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 Asta-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 Trikutaka Vihara under the protection of Dharmapala some time after his 
Reformation of Mahayana 
School of Buddhism. 
