RAMACARITA. 
11 
Gangeya Cedi takes Mithila. 
parts or led a raid dignified with the name of Digvijaya, which made but very little 
impression in this country. 1 
During the whole of the nth century, however, the Palas had to contend against 
a formidable neighbouring power, the Cedis of Tripuri. 
lhe Cedi Empire. The Cedis held the whole of the tract between Behar and 
Bundelkhand. Gangeya Deva, in the first quarter of the century, crossed the Ganges 
and conquered much of the territory to the north of that river, and between that 
river and the Yamuna. The King of Katiauj was very weak. He submitted to 
Mahmud of Gazni without a struggle and was killed by the neighbouring Hindu Raja 
for allying himself with an infidel. The Cedi king took advantage of the king’s 
weakness to conquer much of his territory. Gangeya Cedi seems to have conquered 
Mithila from the Palas. For Professor Bendal in his historical introduction to my 
Nepal Catalogue speaks of a Nepal scribe writing a manuscript of the Ramayana 
in Mithila, acknowledging Gangeya Deva as the reigning 
sovereign in 1029 A.D. Gangeya Deva died under the 
celebrated fig tree in Prayaga about the year 1040. Even his great enemies, the 
Chandelas, style him as the conquerer of the universe. Mahipala had bad times with 
Rajendracoda on one side, and Gangeya Deva on the other. Rajendra could not make 
much impression in the Pala empire, but Gangeya seems to have taken away Mithila. 
Gangeya’ s son Karna was more formidable still. His reign was a long one, not 
less than 60 years, commencing from 1041. He held 
Pandyas, Murulas, Kungas, Bangas, Kiras and Hunas 
in check; and he is said to have been waited upon by the Coda, Kunga, Huna, 
Gauda, and Gurjjara kings. Joined by the Karnatas he swept over the earth like a 
mighty ocean. The mention of the word Gauda shows that the Palas had to propitiate 
him, but later on fortune seems to have turned her face against him. The Calukyas 
of Gujrat, the Calukyas of Kalyana, the Paramaras of Malwa seem to have held him 
in check, and his power was completely broken in 1080 by Kirti Varma, the king 
of Bundelkhand, whose general, Gopala Raya, defeated him and routed his army. 
The Prabodha-candrodaya was composed and enacted to welcome this victorious 
general at the Candela capital. 
During the reign of Mahipala flourished the great Atisa, or Dipankara Srijnana, at 
the well-known monastery of Vikrama Sila. Dipankara 
was invited by the king of Tibet with a view to reform 
the system of Buddhism prevailing there. And he founded the Red-Cap sect of the 
Eamas. He is the real founder of higher Buddhism in that country. He translated a 
large number of Sanskrit works in Tibetan, and he is still respected as an incarnation 
of Avalokitesvara. 
It is not known when the great monastery of Vikrama Slla was founded, but 
during the 10th and nth centuries it was a powerful rival to Nalanda. But Nalanda 
still flourished and still maintained its high position. A manuscript copied at Nalanda 
Kama Cedi. 
Atisa, the Reformer of Tibet. 
1 Upigraphia Indica, vol. ix, p. 229. South-Indian Inscriptions, vol. i. p. 97. 
