Kingdom of Gauda

The Gauda kingdom was a state in Bengal, in today's West Bengal and Bangladesh, best known through its seventh-century king Shashanka. Ruling from Karnasuvarna, near modern Baharampur, Shashanka built a short-lived power that reached from Bengal into Bihar and Odisha and fought the great north Indian ruler Harsha. He is often described as the first king to try to unite Bengal under one rule.

Gauda was originally the name of a region of Bengal. A Buddhist text, the Mañjuśrī-Mūlakalpa, refers to a kingdom of Gauda that existed before the Gupta Empire took over the region in the fourth century, and names a king Loka from Vardhamana (Bardhaman). Little else is known of this early phase.

The weakening of the Guptas in the late fifth and sixth centuries, worsened by attacks from the Alchon Huns, left northern India divided among ambitious local rulers. Shashanka was one of them. His origins are uncertain: historians have variously made him a native of Magadha, a descendant of the Guptas, a son of a local king, or a tribal leader of Bengal. A seal at the hill fort of Rohtasgarh calls him a mahasamanta, a great feudatory, but it is not known whose vassal he was. Some historians think he served the Later Gupta king Mahasenagupta; others, including Sailendra Nath Sen, doubt this, and Middleton has suggested he served a Gauda king, possibly Jayanaga. By around 605 he ruled in his own right, issuing gold coins and taking the title maharajadhiraja, "king of great kings".

Around 595 to 600 the Gauda army is said to have attacked Kamarupa in Assam, capturing two princes who were later released as vassals. Shashanka then joined the Malwa king Devagupta against the Maukhari rulers of Kanauj. In about 606 the Thanesar king Rajyavardhana, Harsha's elder brother, was killed by Shashanka; the main account of this comes from Bana, Harsha's court poet, who was not present. Harsha took up the war, and Shashanka withdrew from Kanauj, but he kept his own kingdom and went on facing Harsha's attacks. At its height his realm took in much of Bengal, Magadha and parts of Odisha.

Shashanka kept many Gupta traditions, granting land to Brahmins, as copper-plate inscriptions from Midnapore show. His own faith was Shaivite Hinduism. A twelfth-century Buddhist text accuses him of destroying stupas and cutting down the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya. Historians disagree about this: R. C. Majumdar judged the account, written about five centuries later, unsafe as history, while Radhagovinda Basak saw no reason for the author to be biased.

Shashanka's reign is often dated from about 593 to around 636, though the exact years are uncertain. After his death his son Manava ruled for only eight months. The kingdom was then divided between Harsha and Bhaskaravarman of Kamarupa, who took the capital, Karnasuvarna.

Later rulers of Bengal, including the kings of the Pala Empire and the Senas, styled themselves "Lord of Gauda", and the names Gauda and Vanga came to stand for Bengal as a whole. Shashanka is remembered in Bengal as an early symbol of regional unity, and some traditions credit him with starting the Bengali era, the Bangabda.

Our 600 map draws this kingdom under the label "Shaskanka", a variant spelling of the king's name, covering West Bengal and Bangladesh and reaching west towards Patna, with Kamarupa to the north-east.