Vardhana Dynasty – Harshavardhana ( 606–647)

Personal details

•Ruling period : 606ad-647ad•Father name: Prabhakara Vardhana•Brother: Rajavardhana•Sister: Rajashree•Titles : Uttar Patheshwar, Emperor of five Indies. •Capital city: Thaneswar

• He came throne he was just 14 years old .

Early Difficulties • Taking this advantage many neighbouring kings had palnned to attack

on Harsha’s empire. • He wanted save his sister Rajashree who lost her husband.• He had planned to attack on Shahshanka who killed his brother Raja

Vardhana. • During that he had with huge financial problems.

Harsha Vardhana

Shashanka, Bengal

Grihaverman

Harsha’s conquests.

• Harsha defeated Shashanka of Begal and saved his Sister.

• He occupied the entire north India including Bihar,Bengal and Orissa in the east.

• Conquered Punjab and Sind in the west and received title of Emperor of Five Indies.

• He also has friendly relationship with the King of Kamarupa and Srilanka.

The greatest military achievement of Harsha

• war against Pulikesin II (Emperor of Chalukyas and Badami).

• Both emperors met each other on the bank of Narmada in 620 a.d.

• The war continued for two years but no one won the war.

• Finally they came treaty and became good friends and returned back their capital by receiving the titles of Uttara Patheshwar and Dakshina Patheshwar.

Nalanda University.

• Nalanda University was one of the leading universities in the Ancient World.

• It was founded by Kumara Gupta of Gupta ruler.• Nalanda reached on its peak during Harsha Vardhana’s reign

and became the best university on earth. • Harsha reserved ¼ of the income of empire to the

development of the Nalanda University. • It had a huge building with 400 acre of campus.• Dharma chakra was its symbol of Nalanda University.• It had 10,000 students and 1,500 teachers. The ratio between

the teacher and the students was 1:7.

• It had got separate three storied building for library. • It had Lotus Lake in the center of the building. • There was a huge auditorium where every day had many

cultural programmes and performances. • It had students of Srilanka, Japan, China, Nepal, Malaya,

Combodia, Jawa and Sumatra. • Students had to pass three rounds of entrance exams to seek

the admission in the university. • There were 40 different subjects were taught in the

university.• Most interesting fact was- it was free residential university.

Hieun Tsang (Xuan Zang)

• Hieun Tsang was a Chinese pilgrim who had come to India during Harsha’s reign.

• He is known as ‘Prince of pilgrims’. • He was Buddist monk who had dreamt to visit the holy

places of Budshism in India.• After a long journey he reached Kashmir The king of

Kashmir treated him like an ambassador and he guided him to meet his emperor Harsha.

• Harsh welcomed him and provided all facilities for his stay.

• Soon he visited all holy places which were related to Buddha’s life (Lumbini, Kapilavastu, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinar).

• He was very much attracted with the Nalanda University and he joined as the student of Nalanda University. He learnt Sanskrit and studied all Buddhist scripts thoroughly. Later he served in Nalanda as a teacher.

• He also visited to Harsha’s friend Pulikesin Kingdom (Badami) and he went to Kanchi to see the Kanchi university.

• Later Hieun Tsang left India. Harsha presented a golden Buddha while he was leaving.

• He went China and started an Ashram called ‘Hung Pttu’ . • He had written all his experiences of India in a book called

‘Si-Yu-Ki’. In that books he expressed that ‘he wished to take re-birth in India ‘.